Tim Lambesis is a funny guy, though you wouldn't expect it just by
judging his primary involvement with As I Lay Dying.

It just goes to show that you can't pigeonhole the human personality. Lambesis's side project Austrian Death Machine is living proof of that. Whereas As I Lay Dying is considered a serious metal band with deeply personal lyrics, Austrian Death Machine is the antithesis: a tongue-in-cheek tribute to one of the biggest action stars of the silver screen. Yes, we're talking about Arnold Schwarzeneggar, the Terminator, the Governator, etc. Cal him what you will. The point is that he's a great subject for metal. It's a wonder that no one beat Lambesis to the punch.

Total Brutal culls its inspiration from many of Arnold's top movies, such as "Terminator," "Predator," "Kindergarten Cop," and "Total Recall." In addition to the regular songs are funny interludes that feature Arnold in various scenarios. A few of the best ones are the following: the opening address to California, the band practice track in which he's constantly being interrupted by his bandmates, and the "Not So Hidden Track." You gotta love his idea for a 25 hour day, with an extra hour for WORKING OUT!

The music on Total Brutal is a vicious mixture of metalcore and thrash. Every full-length track has a guest guitar solo, including ones from Killswitch's Adam Dutkiewicz, Daath's Eyal Levi & Emil Werstler, and a Metal Blade employee. All of them rule in their own way and it's worth noting that Lambesis performs all the regular guitar, bass, and drums, but he recruited a couple sound engineers to redo parts of the guitars and cymbals. He also admitted to cranking the gain of the amps to eleven and using whammy bars. I believe a fellow named Chad Ackerman does the Ahhnold vocals.

Lambesis wrote each of these songs in less than an hour with no shame, so that explains why they don't have the replayability of those songs from full-time bands. Nevertheless, if you feel that metal has become overrun with politics and dogma, here's your comic relief. (7.1/10)

The Aurora Project’s Shadow Border evokes comparisons to the kind of progressive rock Phil Collins might put together if he forgot how to write memorable music.

Prog music in general likes to go on forever and not present itself as instantly accessible or even likeable, but this is ridiculous. While the singer here isn’t talentless, the vocal parts are bland and unimaginative, and yet sit at the forefront of the mix with the intention of carrying the record. The vocals effectively make listening to the entire album a trip through the doldrums, with only one song having much of any melodic hook.

The music, while benefitting from an excellent recording and played very well, is not helping. Shadow Border generally stays within the same tempo and intensity level from start to finish, which is one that evokes a feeling of being semi-engaged and semi-restrained. The songs’ arrangements are linear and clumsy, with a track often going on aimlessly for a while, and then seemingly to randomly end.

No matter a band’s style, good songs must still be written. Shadow Border does not have good songs. It’s an average album with a few moments of interest, but also a couple moments of pronounced wincing, like when the singer tries to do something of a melodic scat part in his Dutch accent, or yet another entry in the always dismal book of including a spoken clip during a song... which pushes the score below average. (4.8/10)

Stone’s Reach largely brings together elements of Dark Tranquillity-esque melodic death, and fuses it with a vibe that recalls Opeth at its most rocking.

However, insinuating that Be’Lakor rips off those bands would be a gross oversimplification, as Stone’s Reach exhibits a fresh, original take on those two established benchmarks, bringing heavy, engaging music that is always enjoyable to listen to. The music and performances are excellent and inspired, and the recording is crisp, full, and heavy.

While the songs all work within themselves, greater tempo variety would have made Stone’s Reach more of a memorable journey, as the music largely stays in the faster end of mid-paced metal territory.

While Stone’s Reach’s pure artistic merit falls short of stunning, Be’lakor has crafted a highly respectable and recommended album of quality, moving, noble music. (8/10)

The Black Box is a little, black transistor radio-like box, sort of reminiscent of a gravestone. Flingco Sound is promoting these as "miniature monoliths."

Finally, a monolith that fits in your pocket. Take that, HR Giger.

It’s got about 10 or so tracks that will loop on forever, or as forever as the two AA batteries (not included) will allow.

A comment overheard when playing The Black Box:

"Those sounds will end marriages."

The purpose? Annoying you or anyone you intend to play a practical joke on. Track one is enough to accidentally / on purpose drop the box in the toilet — an endless loop of a nerdy voice repeating how it will not kill itself today. Until you catch on that nothing will progress until you hit the fast forward button, you wonder how much longer this declaration will continue. Maybe just 10 more seconds. Maybe something will happen.

Just because the owner of the voice won’t commit suicide, doesn’t mean you won’t. That seems to be the ill-willed joke of all the tracks in general.

If we’re just measuring a single loop, none of the tracks on The Black Box seem to be longer than 10 seconds. Aside from that one spoken word clip, and another sludged out one stating "I can’t feel anything," the tracks are abrasive and dissonantly ambient. What they all have in common is that their sound quality can either be described as "artistically decayed" or "shit." It’s really the same thing. What this translates to is that you might want to play these on a better stereo, but that’s impossible. So joke’s on you.

The Black Box is as retro as possible. It’s hands-on. It won’t even progress until you push the goddamn button for it. You’re likely to have your fill within 5 minutes, which is the shortest EP ever.

In the end, it’s fun to talk about The Black Box, but really, it’s no fun to listen to. It’s a funny enough product, but when considering how much personal listening enjoyment can be had from its $20 price tag, it sucks. Half a point for the care in packaging and the amusing "miniature monolith" tag. (0.5/10)

This one-man project is the result of the resourceful capability of Alex "Carpathian Wolf" (formerly Al’ Hazred of Melechesh). While the production is poor and the sound stifled, the melodic composition offers compensation.

The album artwork was made by Dan Seagrave (Morbid Angel, Dismember, Entombed, Malevolent Creation). Mastering took place at Sonic Train Studio in Sweden by Andy LaRocque (King Diamond).

The record features a solid death and thrash base with crumbs of black metal as well as a sprinkle of folk here and there. "Mentally Ill God" disappoints because of the subdued vocals, despite having guitars that flow as a menacing fountain. "Die in Style" contains some vivacious guitar riffs and is tinged with an old school thrash feel. "Conquerdate (Concordat)" sets its atmosphere with over a minute of acoustic melodies and then detonates into a field of malicious energy.

"Faith" is a colourful track, swimming between emotional melodies, gloomy vocals, acoustic guitars and a genuine expression of suffering. "Courage" has similar attributes, with its heartbreaking guitar playing. The closing track, "Last Veteran" is instrumental and radiates the same sense of desolate existence as "Faith" and "Courage." (7/10)

Crown the Lost’s style recalls what Into Eternity has popularized: heavy metal with the perceived best of disparate styles — power metal vocals on top of death metal grooves, blast beats, some death growls, and flashy guitar leads which are more about technicality than feeling. Crown the Lost is a little different in that it also incorporates a fair amount of metalcore, which here comes with the pretty much requisite Swedish melodic-death influence.

Like Into Eternity, Crown the Lost can play very well, and what they can pull off is highly respectable. Also like Into Eternity, Blind Faith Legacy can often feel like an album whose songs might come out objectively the same if all the parts that make them up were cut up and re-arranged.

Contributing as much as anything else is the singing, which makes up about 80% of the total vocals. While Crown the Lost’s frontman dedicates himself to singing only, he’s really no better than a good backup singer in a quality melodic metal band. Yes, he can do a good impression of the metal wail thing, but a combination of vocal lines with very little imagination or variation, along with a delivery that knows really just one trick (and that trick seems kind of forced much of the time), makes for an experience in which you feel like you’re hearing the same vocal parts over and over again till album’s end.

While Crown the Lost’s parts in themselves are all pretty remarkable (except the singing), it’s the sum of all those parts — yes, the most important thing... the songs — that really are not much to note. (5.4/10)

Attention, metal world, bands, and labels. The Memling painting "The Last Judgement" has been used approximately 25,655 times in metal album covers. That’s about 25,654 times too many, especially considering it tends to be the same goddamn section of the painting, used over and over, ad nauseam. Hate Eternal’s Conquering the Throne wasn’t the first to use it, but it was the most prolific, and thus the artwork should be considered used, and left at that.

Yes, we get it. The painting’s hellish. Get a clue. It’s been done to death, and now, with Dark Domination’s Let Satan Speak Through Our Lips, done to death with a crappy red color wash over the art. Nice.

Seriously, all. Metal bands and labels need to be students of metal. Learn your history. Respect your elders. Stop rehashing the same ideas, which, even in this case, wasn’t original album art to begin with.

It is a really cool painting, though.

Why go on and on about this? It’s part of a package, people. Using what has now become the most generic of cover art (and done badly, at that) tells the potential listener that the music therein is nothing more than generic garbage. Thankfully, art and music correlate well in this case, as Let Satan Speak Through Our Lips is through and through tepid nonsense, from hollow rhetoric, to fragile guitar tones, lifeless drums, uninspired vocals, and meaningless compositions.

Blah. (4/10)

The first two tracks, "Ocean Turn to Blood" and "Wicked One," are quite enthusiastic, but by the time "Speak the Name of the Dead" started I wanted to wrap my ears around my nose and crawl into a corner.

"Werewolf Nation" had a similar effect.

"Demons of The Flesh / Tight White Ropes" is rather interesting, with its captivating tune.

The vocals sound like Danzig and the music exudes all that is horror punk. It’s crude, filthy and catchy most of the time. The tempo alternates between a neurotic rabbit and a defecating snail, offering a curious approach to the central theme, which centers on gore and death.

There isn’t much creativity going on here, but it’s worth a listen if you’re into The Misfits, Samhain and the like. (6.5/10)

Seminal grind band or no seminal grind band, Brutal Truth’s comback album, Evolution Through Revolution, is nothing more than a good, respectable outing. The music is played with proper intensity and conviction, but the guitar and bass tones (and the drum tones, for that matter) would have greatly benefitted with a more focused attack. The album is thick and heavy, but more bite would have given the tracks more life.

Grind’s greatest flaw is that grind albums often sound like the same goddamn track over and over again two dozen times. Evolution Through Revolution is better than that average in that there are songs that stick out, and the band mix up the tempos and intensities reasonably well, but this album won’t crack the top level of the genre. It’s about as good as Napalm Death’s latest album, largely in the same style, with elements that set it apart, but less intense overall. (6.2/10)

Crossroad is a black metal album that succeeds in taking elements of the norm for the genre, and molding them into something unique and fresh.

Diamatregon channel Inquisition here, Darkthrone there, Lugubrum somewhere else, with memorable melodies and a terror-riffic guitar tone: if amplified, distorted stringed instruments could sound like a shambling mound of reverberating electric shingles, then Crossroad would be it, and presented at a level that’s probably just a bit too abrasively loud, but it hurts so good.

What makes Crossroad the potential black metal album of the year is its untouchability — how it shines from sheer personality: Something that can’t be measured, but having a multitude of facets, facets that you can’t entirely put your finger on even after five listens, but keeps you wanting to listen again.

What can be measured, however, is the variety of songs present on the album, from the energetic rippers at the beginning, the morbidly beautiful tune in the middle, and the droning trance-inducers at the end, this is one monster of a record, one that presents the metal enthusiast with the uncommon treat of an album with coherently separate songs.

Crossroad is not only easily five times better than their previous effort (Blasphemy for Satan), but perhaps the best BM album of 2009. (9/10)

Here’s something discouraging: the notion of an entire album of B-sides of one of the worst names associated with the upper echelon in power metal.

To be fair to the band known as Edguy, some of the songs on The Singles have a good, fun, catchy groove. All of about 20% of them.

The songs range from second-rate Helloween B-side songs (at best), to horrific tripe (at worst), with the worst coming in the form of the dregs of would-be cheeky themes like "Lavatory Love Machine" (thanks for the *two* versions. Really needed that), disgusting use of cursing, and writing way too much about asses.

The Singles has glimpses of being likeable, but in the end, it’s overwhelmingly so puerile and sissified that there’s no doubt left that it sucks. (3.5/10)

We would give you more examples, but the lyrics are printed in random order, and combined with the fact that there are two discs, we knew even less what we were listening to. Thrash with keyboards, ballads with shouting, melodic singing over industrial, the keyboards are a joke but the guy knows how to use them in 200 ways. The same for the guitars. Again, none of it good.

Amateurism done professionally or vice versa, beats us. But it is well done and well played, sort of. Intentional or not, who knows? We don't. Why did we even start writing this? And why are you reading? This is by far the most pointless (and, at that, double) album this writer has ever heard. But no, I'm not throwing this CD away. Maybe some day I'll realize why I listened to it and what it exactly was. All I know is that I need a rest and a shot of something that’s in comparison predictable and straightforward like Deathspell Omega, because Ekpyrosis could destroy even the strongest of minds. Wait, is that good or bad? We can't decide between zero and ten (or was it ten and zero) so it will have to be a... (5/10)

The metal world continues to reel from the largely negative impact the trendy style of metalcore has had on it. It seems most people, from metal heads to hardcore people, think metalcore sucks. Sure, some bands are good, but the genre as a whole is not a good thing. And by most people, we’re talking about every person that any of us in Maelstrom talk to. But these records keep getting made. So, go figure.

The Eyes of a Traitor’s A Clear Perception is a decent, respectable album. It’s got an overall lumbering, heavy groove to it, and there are some tasty melodic layers to be heard.

However, any album with the metalcore trappings, from clean vocal sections employing the most basic and bored melodies, and the ubiquitous Gothenburg influence, will spell doom in the form of mediocrity. For any band to succeed at this formula, there will need to be no albums made like this for at least five years, for there to be a resetting of the collective consciousness of the populace in general that this style is aimed at. The bitter taste of exhausted recycle might then have a chance to dissipate. (5/10)

Exilia’s My Own Army is an album of some sort of mallcore groove metal with nu influences. The rhythmic values of the music can be appreciated at times, but overall, it’s junky stuff that will remind no one who worships metal why they fell in love with the music in the first place.

The objectively worst thing about the album is how awkwardly the vocals fit in — kind of too loud, but mostly sitting kind of bare and naked on top, either in a teen angst scream or an asexual girl / emo boy pseudo-melodic something... and none of it good. (3/10)

We’ve listened to albums and taken polls, and it seems that no one disagrees with the notion that Folkearth is a project that’s exciting, but in concept only.

The acoustic-only album Songs of Yore seems to scrape the bottom of the barrel from what we’ve heard of this multi-national institution. Very simple, largely generic music, recorded respectably well, nothing particularly remarkable, generally topped by janky, weedy vocals is the norm on this album. As usual, you want to like it if you’re a proponent of Pagan / Viking metal projects, but sadly, you can’t. Much better to listen to Ulver or Empyrium instead. (3.9/10)

We’ll dispense with the obligatory commentary of how big of a pair of shoes the Gathering had to fill with this new-era album, and get straight to the chase.

The West Pole has some very nice songs and more good moments. However, what makes the overall album feel tepid is the lack of any real rockers. While some of The West Pole’s quiet, laid-back tunes would be apt segues in a more dynamic album, that they seem to come end-to-end here makes the bulk of The West Pole feel like unmemorable filler.

A note about the new singer: She’s largely in the same vein as Anneke Van Giersbergen, feels fresher, and probably is technically superior, although the signature presence hasn’t been established yet. Maybe in albums to come... But as far as The West Pole goes, the fact that The Gathering released a new album is more exciting than the album itself. (6/10)

Where most others fail, Gollum takes a bunch of different approaches and styles, and makes a deep and interesting album in The Core.

The heavy, aggressive music features hints of grind, horror movie soundtrack, some excellent clean vocal appearances, jagged, groovy riffs, and progressive touches. The creative arrangements, quality musicianship, and multi-faceted approaches makes The Core feel like a full album after only four songs. And last but not least, The Core sounds great when played loud. Great stuff! (7.8/10)

Gortal's modus operandi seems to be "just do what any other death metal band is doing, but faster." The blastbeats are awesome, no mistake. Respect to the drummer. But there is not much to listen to apart from those. Two thirds of the time, the riffs are completely standard and forgettable, and when Gortal try to stray from them, it sounds like a collection of notes required to fill the blastspace (see, we can do word plays too) and even more forgettable.

If Gortal bothered to elaborate on their music in a different way, at least the songs would be distinguishable. But, they chose to remain square: Precisely, if you are listening to Blastphemous Sindecade, start counting. Each phrase will last until you've counted to eight, apart from somewhere near the end where you'll notice a few six-ers. No matter how many fillers this Polish crew do to chop the tracks into smaller pieces, the squareness remains.

Apart from that, you can hear a few fairly well done solos, and plenty of predictable growls, and all will be over in about thirty minutes. Nine machine guns shooting at you, and you won't be hit by a single bullet. (4/10)

"Born to Burn," for instance, showcases a lifetime of sinning and the narrator's belief that there is no possible way he could be saved from infernal hellfire. He admonishes anyone who would pray for him. It's the sort of material that could make you feel guilty for moving along with the music.

"Watching Old Friends Die" is about the narrator witnessing the gradual death of many chums through heavy alcoholism and reckless partying. It's basically his alarm siren for those individuals to grow up and get some sense. "Edge" reads like a hypothetical answer to those friends who criticize him for not wanting to continue his old lifestyle. Take note of the following stanza:

"I don't smile like you
I've lost my edge
I don't coke like you
I've lost my edge
I don't drink like you
I've lost my edge
I don't think like you
I guess I've lost my edge"

With lyrics like these, you could imagine singing that was more aggressive and / or melancholy, but it's all done with a Southern swagger that's somewhat neutral or matter-of-fact. It comes from a voice that is self-possessed and not easily swayed by others.

The music doesn't really forge any new ground, but to expect groundbreaking music often is statistically improbable. This is just a group of guys who took a love of classic rock, blues, and metal old and new to create a rocking record. Check out the cover of Ted Nugent's "Just What the Doctor Ordered" as well. It was a great choice and fits in with the rest of the tracks perfectly.

Uphill Both Ways is one of the most fun albums that has come across these ears in several months, even if the lyrics indicate otherwise. Whoever designed the cover deserves a cornfield of laughs, by the way. (8.2/10)

Let’s hope Terroreign marks the end of Impiety’s shitty punk experiments. The last two Impiety albums, Formidonis Hex Cultus and Dominator (in particular) were pretty shabby — like the war metal blasphemy was replaced by third rate pop punk riffs, but given a filthy treatment. Treason.

While Terroreign’s eight proper songs are practically one and the same, it’s Impiety doing what Impiety is supposed to do: play death metal as intensely and rabidly as possible, so that it’s so over-the-top that it’s corny. The wild, maddening guitar solos barge in like a shooter in a third rate John Woo film, and damned if there is any apparent composition to any of them. The drums are stupidly brutal and seem barely in control, which works well for this album. The riffs are of that intense, incoherent, panic-in-hell quality that marks Impiety’s discography. And the vocals have the in-your-face blasphemy dial turned all the way up.

Be sure that Terroreign isn’t this group’s best album (get Skullfucking Armageddon, Paramount Evil, or Kaos Kommand 696), and the chances of finding any bits of individual memorability on Terroreign are slim to none, it is an Impiety album done right, which means equal amounts fist pumping and chuckling at the general absurdity... and that’s a good thing. (6.9/10)

Quite often, Leprous’ take on progressive on Tall Poppy Syndrome can be a refreshing and interesting one. The music never sounds like a facsimile of someone else’s style, which is a great thing.

Stylistically, Leprous likes to keep things light most of the time, with delicate compositions, which are not bad at all. When they do break into heavier riffing and drums, those parts work well.

The element that shoots Leprous pretty squarely in the foot is with the vocals. It’s not so much that the near-entirety of the clean vocals are bad so much as they don’t fit, being dainty, choir-man / boy type singing that can sometimes evoke a member of a candy-striped barbershop quartet, but singing without the other three members. How the lamentable usage of teenage temper tantrum emo screams deeply wound this album are another thing altogether. If this record had the same music, but a more judicious choice of vocals, it would be rated much higher. (6/10)

Man Must Die’s general style is groovy, fast death metal that features a good amount of melodic hooks in the music. The performances often feel about one step away from mechanical. This is particularly the case with the drums, which are pretty close to sounding like the were programmed.

On the plus side, No Tolerance For Imperfection’s tasty segments make for some good listening, and the album has enough energy and relevance to keep the listener engaged and entertained. On the minus side, the standard angry deathy vocals are too loud, and overall, the album is just too seemingly inhumanly flawless, to the point of being sterile, to hope to enter classic territory. See, it’s imperfections within the context of genius that lead to timeless art. Not the other way around. (6.5/10)

Maelstrom’s definitive review of Marduk’s La Grande Danse Macabre album was done way back in issue #2 by ex-staffer and ginormous Marduk fan ~Vargscarr~, who, in great detail, wrote...

"Let me start by saying I am a total Marduk devotee. The last two studio albums (Nightwing and Panzer Division Marduk) are perfect albums as far as I'm concerned. La Grande Danse Macabre had a lot to live up to - I was almost worried Marduk would follow the recent trend of once great bands turning out woefully poor albums in the name of 'experimentation.' Mayhem, Emperor...even Deicide (thought you could rely on Deicide didn't you? No, they abandoned their trademark perfect crunching guitar sound; the drums sound like they're being played through a wall, and the songs are slow and poorly constructed) are just some of the names on this shitlist. Yes, if it could happen to Deicide, there's a chance it could happen to Marduk.

If you're a Panzer... fan; you will likely be disappointed by La Grande Danse...*on first listen*. The CD kicks off with a slow, crunchy intro - very good as far as intro tracks go; then slips nicely into the Black Metal clusterfuck that is "Azrael." Now, when the album has the listener hooked, it makes the mistake of changing pace and delivering a short, slow-n-heavy instrumental; which neither goes nor takes the listener anywhere particularly special. It would work well a few tracks down the line as an intro to the second half of the album, or better yet as an outro. Well constructed, but of little interest - you won't put this CD into your stereo and hit track 3 when you think of La Grande Danse.

Next we have "Obedience unto Death" - another fast track, very well executed - but shy of being classic Marduk; and "Bonds of Unholy Matrimony," which begins with a l-o-n-g drawn out intro before it kicks in. There is some excellent bass playing on here by the oft-unsung talent, B.War; but the main guitar riff isn't amazing. The song is really saved by some killer vocal lines ("Forget about the future you knew did not exist/Your work is being pounded by Satan's armoured fist") and an excellent solo, which in and of itself is a rare luxury in a Marduk composition.

Now the album *really* kicks in - the title track is a "Dreams of Blood and Iron" style slow, repetitive track; but far from getting tedious it stands out as a classic (just like "Dreams") because the riff is so unbelievably fucking good. This one is a crunching headbanger - it'll be a live classic.

And then, blistering out of the speakers like an unpleasant bout of herpes, comes "Death Sex Ejaculation" - fast, brutal and contender for best track on the album...Truly classic Marduk evil. This is followed by a re-vamped "Funeral Bitch" (originally released on the Obedience EP), which is given a Hammer Horror spin with a Christopher Lee soundbite; slowed down a touch, and played in a more Death Metal style with the riff palm-muted. Personally I don't prefer it to the original, but it's not a bad track and I have a feeling many will enjoy it more - the band obviously did. Watch out for more great bass playing on here by the way.

The last two tracks are interesting: "Summer's End" being the embodiment of the experimental feel of the whole album. Slow, creepy and with an air of the exotic; it is for the main part and instrumental with vocals kicking in towards the end. It's interesting, and very good, but I fear will often be skipped because it's just not what I want to hear when I have a Marduk album playing. This is what I mean about the arrangement of the songs - if they were less mixed up and the fast Marduk we know and love was all got out of the way at the beginning we could recline in the warm afterglow that followed "Death Sex Ejaculation" and listen, already more than satisfied, to the band branch out and try some new things with their music; rather than feel like they interrupt themselves from playing what we love them for with this material.

Overall then, La Grande Danse Macabre is a fine album; and would appear much greater if it were not shadowed by the band's last two studio releases. Standing alone it is a triumph, especially if the songs are played randomly, which eliminates the inherent mixed up nature of the play list as it stands because when you hit random you lose the expectation of an album that plays through in a way which makes sense. There's enough classic Marduk on here to keep fans happy, and enough experimentation to make it an interesting listen to those who may have written off the band in the past."

This latest re-issue of La Grande Danse Macabre comes with a DVD, featuring a 9-song live performance from 2001, featuring the "classic" Marduk lineup. The video is of the handycam variety, but it’s steady and of high quality considering its source. The audio is also of very listenable and recognizable (live) quality.

However, the show is nothing remarkable. The footage is not dynamic, and really, any performance of soft, effeminate former frontman Legion is best enjoyed as heard and not seen, which is particularly the case when you aren’t actually there.

The main thing that’s an improvement is the cover art is finally not that awful thing that Century Media put out, with the horrific, random, grainy Marduk logo seemingly made at the last minute by a label intern after the proper logo was lost in a computer crash. Now, Regain released a box set that has this same art, but in a much more attractive glossy cardboard box that houses a 6-panel digipak, making that option a much more compelling one. We recommend that. The DVD is not nearly reason enough to re-purchase an album you already have, but it can’t hurt if you don’t already own the album! (No need to buy if you already own the album/10)

Nadja is the premier name in melding drone and doom into an entirely submerging, trancelike experience.

While their latest album, the spastically named When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV, essentially sticks to their guns, it pales in comparison with other giant works such as Skin Turns to Glass, Radiance of Shadows, and Touched.

The main culprit here is that the enveloping heaviness is of a more brittle, piercing nature, which is less effective than is customary with this group.

Secondarily, while an album of cover songs is novel, particularly when it comes to hearing how a band like Nadja would cover a Slayer song ("Dead Skin Mask"), at the end of the day — like just about every cover album ever — the album is more novelty than lasting art. And how many times must "Long Dark Twenties" be featured on a Nadja release? (We’re counting three, thus far). The song itself is rather annoying to begin with.

It does speak for Nadja that the duo has enough clout to make a cover album that people would actually get excited about. Cover albums are only relevant when the coverers are a recognized, respected entity. Nadja is, and while When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV offers some very nice moments fans of this band will enjoy, and comes packaged with a highly attractive booklet featuring artwork depicting the Nadja duo in scenes reflecting the themes of the songs they cover, this release will be able to sit more as a quaint footnote in Nadja’s discography only because of the strength of that output as a whole. (6.5/10)

On The Weak Creation, Hyadningar primarily remind of Swedish melodic black/death act Dawn with similar approaches to long, lovely melody lines presented in a searing motif, with constant drum intensity and mournful shrieking. Compared to Dawn’s Slaughtersun’s Abyss Studios Production, The Weak Creation is lower fidelity, more bare-bones in sound, but not without charm.

Hyadningar also throw in some Dark Tranquillity influence, a bit of old Bethlehem, a bit of Burzum, and a bit of doom (or maybe it’s the suggestion that Hyadningar is on Total Rust, a doom label) to make an album that is uncommon. The songs and structures don’t seem done to death, there’s a good amount of creativity to uncover, and quite a few moments of tasty enjoyment.

The Weak Creation isn’t the best album ever, but it is a very nice listen. Mainly, it’s not cookie-cutter rehash to the most fundamental elements. Sometimes the music can lose urgency, but overall, it’s quite a good outing that has at least a few listens’ worth of entertainment to offer. (7.3/10)

When Non Opus Dei play dense, fast, and busy on Constant Flow, the band can offer up some pretty interesting blackened death metal to get involved in. The slower sections are not bad, but it’s a combination of seemingly careless, haphazard arrangements — like, it’ll feel like you’ve been listening to Constant Flow for 20 minutes and surely at least five songs, but look at the stereo and track three hasn’t ended yet — and a very unpleasant sound that really holds this album back.

We’re sure it’s mostly because of the sound, which damages the listening experience with an overall piercing, brittle top end. The greatest culprit in the mix is the guitar tone, which, although loud and in-your-face, is weedy and synthetic sounding, like a bad simulated tone given an "insane" treament.

It’s highly probable that if the production were darker, heavier, and had more room to breathe, the album would be at least twice as good. As it is, there are quite respectable compositional and instrumental flashes to be enjoyed from this Polish band, but even if you try to accustom yourself to the heinous sound, it still ends up feeling icky. (5.9/10)

Opitz’s Globalni Orgie - Strikni Protokol is a fun mini-CD of groovy grind. Ass-shaking is entirely possible at numerous times on this CD, and Opitz often achieves a good vibe of quality, unpretentious grind with a respectable amount of variety. And the drums and bass sound good.

On the downside, the tempos tend to stay pretty much the same, and the guitar tone is not particularly tasty. The last song has a guest appearance by someone going by the name of Phil Da Top, which you might be able to guess is some sort of hip-hop thing (in this case also kinda reggae), which sucks big time in this album. But Opitz still survives.

Globalni Orgie - Strikni Protokol is a good grind album that is aptly 19 minutes long. It’s enjoyable, has good character, and is not utterly redundant. Fans of this style will like it, but it won’t top anyone’s lists. (6.8/10)

Songs of Death Songs of Hell is a 5-song EP of blackened thrash. The vibe and tone of the album is good, but the music never really gets out of its own way to make any real impression. The songs are mid-paced to slow thrash, and halfway into song #2, you’ve pretty much figured out the entirety of this release. It would no doubt help if the drums were not just bare bones playing, and that they were presented more powerfully in the mix, but the biggest culprit is stagnant songwriting. It’s five times the same song, and that song is average fare. (5/10)

These Greeks have a different, almost trancelike take on power metal that's hard to adjust to at first, but later becomes an unexpected treasure to the ears. Sure, there's nothing overtly differentiating the tracks from each other, but it shouldn't always be a requirement that each track stands on its own. Reflection are just a modest band who want to create good music, yet not go through the effort of trying to create the next classic.

They never achieve the trademark beats per minute of most power metal, instead doling out deliberate waltz-like rhythms, simple drumbeats, and thick bass lines. None of the solos are too flashy, but are executed with impeccable precision. Finally, the vocalist has a rich bellow inflected with his Mediterranean voice, which makes a unique performance. However, his noticeable lack of color can leave you wanting at times.

The album exudes a forbidden mystique that draws you in despite your veiled insistence that this kind of music should be faster, dammit. Tracks such as "Mistress of Sea" and "Lost" have a hymnal simplicity that demands singing in large groups, whereas interlude "Whispers of the Dead" could very well make your skin crawl.

When Shadows Fall is a tasteful, classy power metal album which should appeal to fans of clear melodies. Stay away if you're feeling the need for speed. No double bass here. (7.5/10)

The flavor on Horde of Hel’s Blodskam often reminds of Carpathian Forest. The guitar tone is fuzzy and heavy while being well within the black metal spectrum. The element that is a drag are the drums, which come across as too synthetic. Something about the way they were mixed make them sound mechanical and separate from the rest of the music. While the basic tone and mood of the songs could be good, the drums render the music all too finite.

When not making decent black metal tracks, Horde of Hel fills Blodskam with dark ambient passages, that range from poor man’s Karajalan Sissit-esque theatrical to industrial in flavor. These only occasionally rise above the level of filler and into a place of lukewarm interest.

Blodskam would be a respectable record. Sure, it often wanders off and loses the listener’s interest a bunch before its 50 minutes are up, but it isn’t generic through and through. However, the last track really turns up the suck with pitch-shifted loops of a voice talking about the World Trade Center and September 11^th. References to 9/11 in albums was tired about seven years ago, and to have that on a black metal record is the lamest thing for the genre in recent memory. Cliched, half-assed political statements in black metal is false and with that, the interest in this album is definitively doomed. (4.9/10)

Hey, isn’t this Black Anvil album awfully black metal for Relapse Records? This is the same record label that throughout the ‘90s refused to put out any BM because they thought it was just a hollow trend.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?

Anyway, you could make a case that Black Anvil is kinda not black metal, but that would be splitting hairs. If you count Khold (think dirty, rockin’ heavy music with black metal vocals) as black metal, then Black Anvil is black metal. And if you like Khold, you’ll like Time Insults the Mind. If you dig Lair of the Minotaur, you might like Black Anvil, although the latter can’t match the feral, crushing energy of the former.

Black Anvil sounds like a band that performs live... or could, anyway. Maybe that’s why Relapse put them out. The band’s cover of "Dethroned Emperor" might be a strong suggestion towards appealing to the Celtic Frost school, which seems apt. Black Anvil isn’t just some rip-off band, and this album is a god outing, but if groovy, dirty black n roll isn’t your thing, Time Insults the Mind won’t likely sway you. Try Bergraven’s Dodsvisioner first. (6.2/10)

Some bands make music that is artistic and explores a genre. Others make music that embraces doing exactly what has been done a million times, and without standing out whatsoever. On this split recording, both Rubufaso Mukufo and Destructive Explosion of Anal Garland are the latter, both playing grindcore that’s all about worshipping the form, but having no function.

While you can tell each band’s recordings from the other — the latter is way more sonically artificially violent than the former — but you can’t tell one song from another, or really from whatever mediocrity has come before it... nor would you want to. The split is worse than terrible, it’s boring. (3.7/10)

Solo albums of iconic musicians in the popular music world — the kind of musicians featured in just about every issue of every magazine devoted to the instrument that made them famous — overwhelmingly tend to have one thing in common: they’re horribly, horribly dull.

The worst are the famous guitarist solo albums. An album of someone famous playing wanky guitar, then changing styles to make more of a funky tune, then a classical tune, then something else entirely, and never with any vocals, but always to the most basic rhythms, is the lamest of the lame. The only thing conceivably lamer would be an album of drum solos.

Come to think of it, the most iconic musicians — the ones most heavily endorsed, but whose personal name is bigger than any band they’ve ever been in — tend to make utterly sterile, banal albums in general, albeit ones played with perfect tone, time, and technique.

Billy Sheehan (he’s one of the bass nerd circuit’s biggest darlings)’s solo album is better than most in that there are actual songs to enjoy, which in this case transcends the rationale of blindly purchasing it just because one liked Mr. Big, for example.

In Billy Sheehan’s defense, he is a superb bass player. He’s also a pretty good guitarist and singer as well (although you’ll notice the difference in presence when a dedicated frontman, King’s X’s Doug Pinnick, does vox on one track), and there is a decent hook or two to be found on Holy Cow.

However, Holy Cow generally sounds like a bunch of songs written in the equivalent of a talented musician’s sandbox. They aren’t compelling or meaningful, they’re merely musical compositions featuring guitar, bass, drums, and singing. Some are more "soulful," some are more rockin’, others are merely jams between bass and drums. They’re all tepid and with about half as much depth as any record by a professional-level band *not* featuring any of the members’ names on the CD cover. (5.3/10)

Spiculum Iratus’ Summa Anti-Theologica impresses immediately with a powerful, dirty sound. The production’s bass frequencies are violent, and the whole album breathes a uniquely mean edge. On sound alone, this album is quite an engaging listen.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the actual music. While there is nothing objectionable in Spiculum Iratus’ compositions, they are pedestrian. The big star is certainly how the hum-drum riffs and progressions are played with ferality, and how that energy is translated to the listener via the album’s sound. In that sense, Summa Anti-Theologica is a good album in its show, but at its core, it’s average. (6.5/10)

There Is No Sound in Space is an instrumental project that could be described as some mix of techno, classical, new age, and metal, presented with some outer space vibe that recalls Zombi, Malmsteen, and electric cellist David Darling.

The instrumentation primarily incorporates electric violin, electric guitar, and drum machine. The tones sound like they were done all digitally, and considering that, the quality is quite good and vivacious.

The tracks’ epic and space themes are likeable, and the music can often attain some noticeably tasty moments. While the album never dips below a level that can be described as listenable, There Is No Sound in Space, as a whole, still conveys a feeling of a project that is not yet fully baked.

The tracks are composed and offer unusual enjoyment, but the sense of what these artists are trying to say and accomplish does not seem fully coherent, making these recordings seem like well-realized demos. The concept and groundwork is solid. Let’s hope this duo can further flesh out their craft in the future. (5.8/10)

Whiplash’s Unborn Again proves that you don’t need a million bells and whistles in order to make an album appealing in 2009. Take a basic yet solid guitar tone, earthy, believable-sounding drums, and a slightly hoarse air raid siren wild man on vocals, then engineer it all so it honestly sounds like a real band playing it, and you’ve got success.

Of course, you have to be able to play well, and while Whiplash aren’t trying to be the fastest or most extreme thrash band of the year, it doesn’t matter, because their performances sound genuine and are more exciting and energizing than the latest whirlwind whatever flash-in-the-pan fancy pants band that Century Media has put out lately. Or, for that matter, all the inane, all production and no content bands that Pulverised has been churning out over the last couple years. More of this, please.

Last important element --- Whiplash can write fun, catchy songs. Cheesy sometimes, yes, but Unborn Again is the most relevant, true thrash album that we’ve heard perhaps in years. It’s old school, but it doesn’t sound like a mere facsimile, which is the biggest point here. It’s good fun, has got great energy, and doesn’t sound like a bunch of guys hiding behind studio trickery. Recommended. (7.5/10)

Murder Symmetry’s Symmetry of Delirium shines in its technicality and production, but brings little in terms of palpable art.

We have a hard time giving negative ratings to bands whose musical chops are high, or who obviously put a lot of time into their work. Symmetry of Delirium abounds with very intense and well-executed technical deathdom, and is brought to you via a powerful and full production.

Despite these positive aspects, there is very little appreciable difference between songs on Symmetry of Delirium. Sure, you can tell that one track starts with a moody intro, another doesn’t begin with a blast beat, or another is the "slow" song, but once Murder Therapy get going, it all might as well be the same song... and that song has been heard before. A lot.

To Murder Therapy’s credit, there are no false metal elements to their music. No hint of metalcore, no attempts at bringing something highly commercial in a decidedly uncommercial genre. But the songs, as pieces of musical enjoyment, are largely bland and interchangeable. We’ll keep calling albums like these "good" because of the depth of ability and execution, but at the rate technically phenomenal and sonically brutal albums like this come out, pretty soon it’ll be average to mediocre.

Still, if you’re a big fan of tech death, we can recommend it to you. Like, if you love Unique Leader’s roster, or think Suffocation’s Blood Oath is album of the year, or can really get into dense, busy playing of heavy, distorted music purely for the sake of it, then listen. If you want an album that abounds with technical prowess *and* has personality and song separation, get Thanatos’ Justifiable Genocide. (6/10)

Just when you thought that the "core" suffix couldn’t get any stranger, there’s Blessed by a Broken Hearth’s Pedal to the Metal. It’s like Backstreet Boys slash metalcore slash ‘80s rock and pop. Canada’s Quebec region is deemed as strange by the French and Blessed by A Broken Heart is a perfect example why. These so-called "Summer party anthems" are ideal for promoting happy thoughts, the official review claims.

The most serious track is the intro, which paves the way for a variety of pop songs that are layered beneath standard heavy metal guitar riffs and "core" breaks. The idea is amusing, to be honest, and until now, I would never have imagined such an odd combination of styles.

The sound is well-produced and the musicians are talented; but at times the tracks risk being labeled as infantile. In general, the vocals are a blend of happy-go-lucky, I-wanna-stay-forever-young prototypes and shotgun-type growls.

"Move Your Body" is like Aqua being handed a guitar and a can of hair spray. "To Be Young" is more ‘80s rock meets Simple Plan. "Blood on Your Hands" contains both chirpy vocals and growls; skillful guitar licks as well as breaks that are typically associated with ‘core bands. "Don’t Stop" features a synthesizer that does a great job of evoking ‘80s pop bands. "Ride Into the Night" includes one of the various hearty guitar licks that guitarist Shred Sean plays.

While this definitely isn’t an album you can listen to without getting bored, it’s worth a listen. Just to see how diverse the metal scene can be. And if you have a secret (or not-so-secret) passion for pop songs, then it’s definitely your cup of tea. Extra points for originality. (7/10)

This Finnish trio knows how to balance melody with brutality. Featuring Finntroll vocalist Matias Lillmans, Chthonian demonstrates its effective formula with songs that rarely get monotonous.

In addition to the continuous flow of energy that writhes around the tracks, the musician’s talents radiate all over the place. The first offering, "Ill," is an enlightening introduction to Chthonian’s style, featuring animated guitar sounds that are in a perpetual state of motion. The drums are potent, rarely get out of pattern, and tie in well with the rest of the instruments.

Throughout the record, the vocal style is smooth and the growls don’t swerve sideways. "Sanguine Sadism" is as menacing as it is groovy. Meanwhile, "Weep Human Weep" features a subtle progression between guitar styles that alter between ferocious, droning and melodic riffs.

Essentially, the band uses a similar structure for all songs, which could disappoint some. Nevertheless, the record could be an interesting addition to your collection if you’re into charming manipulations of musical madness. (7.8/10)

While the concept behind Naer Mataron is interesting (Hellenic Black Metal), the music wavers in the land of the unknown and at times fails to reach inspiring levels. The sound, although primal, does not always appear coherent. However, the production is surprisingly good. The band may have nearly 15 years under its belt, but unfortunately this particular record is far too chaotic. And not in a constructive way.

Soon after the album commences, the vocalist’s croaking begins. It works for some songs (like "Astara," "Death Cast a Shadow Over You," "The Eternal Pest," and, to some extent, in "Praetorians") but in others it just sounds excessively detached from the rest of the sound. An issue that is disturbing is the drumming. It’s just a little out of place at times.

Kudos are given for "Death Cast a Shadow Over You" for its melodic guitars, "Praetorians" for its attempt at diversity and "Astara" for its aggression. The first of those three contains something that is generally missing through the rest of the album — emotion. It seems to tell the story of inevitable darkness.

The last track of the record, "Praetorians," is the longest and lasts just under 10 minutes. It may not be the most pleasant song in the universe, but it deserves a mention simply because it’s got intriguing compositions and like "Death Cast a Shadow Over You," it hints at malevolent feelings. "Astara," meanwhile, is threatening and intense.

Fans of older Norwegian acts like Darkthrone and Mayhem may find some things of interest in Naer Mataron’s latest release, but overall these Greek evildoers don’t add much to the miscellany of black metal acts. (4/10)

The general theme on Tank Gasmask Ammo is old school Swedish death metal a la Grave, Dismember and Entombed, and chest-ripping grindcore. Surprisingly, there are also bits and pieces of melody that are cleverly placed within the song structure.

The first two tracks, "Napalm God" and "Mutant Slut," are dirty and raw. However, the third track unravels a pleasant tune that upkeeps the griminess, but at the same time manages to incite a rather sterile approach. "Tank Gasmask Ammo" is somewhat disappointing, mainly due to the tedious drumming, but features a malevolent guitar sound that gives it a good vibe.

Meanwhile, "Celebrating Gamma Bliss" disheartens because of the stagnant vocal patterns, even if they are there to adhere to the grindcore element. "Riders on the MushroomCloud," the sixth track, may have the same vocal inertia, but it does contain an interesting aural explosion a minute and a half into the song.

"You Should Be Brutally Slaughtered" gets a thumbs-up not just because the title made me laugh, but also because of its lively nature. "Upon the Bonethrone" is a slower composition with a pounding, thick guitar sound. Although the start and the end of the song are sluggish, the middle is faster and features a brief guitar solo. The band ends on a short note with "Radiation Blessed" that fires haphazard bursts of energy here and there.

We all know the routine. Good, but nothing original. (6.8/10)

The name Al Atkins might not say anything to you, but you probably know the band he fronted way back in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s — one Judas Priest. Yep, Atkins was Priest's original frontman, and is actually credited for a few of the songs that later appeared on Priest's first two albums.

Fast forward to 2007, and Atkins releases Demon Deceiver, his fifth solo album. This might sound as a cash-grabbing attempt at first, but Atkins proves himself a capable metal frontman, sounding like a crossover of Rob Halford and Dave Mustaine, compensating for lacking the vocal range of the former with the tongue in cheek attitude of the latter.

But that's not all! Atkins is supported by an enthusiastic band that gives 100%, with guitarist Simon Lees (also of late Budgie) being the standout, delivering some deadly lead and rhythm guitar work. In fact, the opening instrumental cut is surprisingly one of the best tracks on this album, thanks to Lees' awesome guitar.

Amongst catchy yet powerful songs that should please just about any classic heavy metal fan, Demon Deceiver also includes Atkins' take at two classic Judas Priest numbers – "Victim of Changes" (only the first, faster part of the song) and "Dreamer Deceiver" – these might not be innovative enough, but they are certainly passionate.

The two bonus tracks on this reissue capture Atkins in the more modern dressing of his new band, "Holy Rage." There's a heavier wall of sound at the expense of melodic playing on these two songs, and the second ("A Void to Avoid") features guitarist Bernie Torme (of Gillan fame). (7.5/10)

Azaghal’s been around for a long time, and has put out a lot of material. However, their output has been pretty spotty. Not ideal elements like lots of directionless style changes, blatant ripping off of more successful bands’ riffs (thinking particularly of how they rip off early Ulver in Mustamaa), and albums that were pretty good in the style they were going for, but not quite (like Helvetin Yhdeksan Piiria), to just tepid albums (Of Beasts and Vultures), made this a band to get excited about at first, but then lose interest in, still remember, but not care to follow.

Teraphim is their latest album, and it’s interesting, generally good, and yet embodies a good deal of what makes Azaghal a B-list act in the pantheon of black metal.

What’s great about Teraphim is that there’s a strong amount of variety of song approaches, which translates to recognition of one track to the other on the album. There’s strightforward black metal blastmort, but lower key atmospheric melodic songs, an appearance of a very delicate clean break, a campy keyboard segue, some straight-up NWOBHM-influenced pieces, fine application of build-ups to choruses, and much compositional dynamics to speak of. After a listen or two, Teraphim becomes a memorable experience, but doesn’t go so far as to stay in the brain weeks later.

However, the way that Azaghal interweaves all these styles on this record alone is another manifestation of the clumsiness and lack of apparent direction that has marked its career. On one hand, the variety makes for an appreciated musical journey, but the sense in how it all fits together, and why, doesn’t always feel solid. This is most exemplified with how the album ends with final track "Kyy," a relatively easy going, jaunty number. It’s memorable in terms of its place in the album, but it’s not a particularly strong way to end the record, leaving a taste of sloppiness or incompletion in the mouth of the listener.

Terpahim is an enjoyable and recommended album, but shows that Azaghal still are dabbling with a variety of voices, and haven’t completely figured out how they all link together, even after all these years. (7.3/10)

Straight out of Oakland, California comes miRthkon. This, the band's debut LP, borrows a lot from the Frank Zappa legacy – starting with humorous lyrics, occasionally spiked with a tad of cynicism, and on with a highly capable, crossover musical performance that benefits from affluent, frenzied orchestrations. The most straightforward proof of the Zappa influence is found in "Coven of Coyotes," which features a highly entertaining singing dialogue reminiscent of Zappa and Bozzio's dialogue in "Titties and Beer."

miRthkon's ingenuity is in the metal edge that it incorporates so well into the vivid arrangements. The guitars are forceful, cranked up with distortion, and yet they seem to sit in just right with the nuanced arrangements, even when they get loose. In other words, the guitars do not sound like noise or a plain heavy backing to bang your head to, but rather supply a vibrant edge to the articulate compositions.

Furthermore, the way that the metal rhythms and leads join in conversations with the masterful ensemble of brass is fabulous. The brass instruments (saxes, flutes, clarinets) deliver with chamber music esthetics and rock energy while the electric guitar shreds to the pounding rhythms of the bass and drums, offering a refreshing brand of fusion. "Daddylonglegz," for example, has some of the liveliest brass arrangements heard in rock music, performed with classical music sensitivity within a funk metal setting that gives the piece a jaw-dropping boost (and by the way increases the accessibility factor, so that every metal fan will find himself drooling instead of bored).

What miRthkon's music might lack in depth, it more than makes up for in richness and freshness, proving that heavy, creative music can also be cheerfully uplifting. That is, in itself, nearly a miracle. (8/10)

The first track on Avanti! starts off like a somber, slow motion take on modern King Crimson, but then it suddenly takes a more cheerful, Gentle Giant-like form. Alas, the band Miriodor sounds somewhat mechanical, and you keep expecting a vocalist to pour some emotions into the tangled, mathematical composition.

This lack of character is clearly not what you expect from a band that has been active for over 25 years now. But, wait! Miriodor does keep some refreshing weapons for later on.

The second track, "Dare Devil," reveals some festive trumpet playing at the forefront, making the entire piece sound a whole lot livelier. There are colorful organ and guitar lines here as well. Hell, the guest trumpet player (Maxime St-Pierre) even takes a jazzy solo!

"Meeting Point" follows. It opens with a brilliant, romantic (classical music) section, moves on to some avant-garde tempering, consisting knocks and distant electronic sounds. Then, the piece evolves into some dazzling, advanced contrapuntal work, before returning to the harmonics, all within the first four minutes or so of the piece, which overall presents a truly exciting modern angle on classical music.

By the time the fifth track, "To Be Determined," starts, the bad taste of the first track is completely forgotten, but a sense of sameness lurks around the corner. Yet, in addition to showing off excellent compositional and performance skills once again, the basic lineup is augmented by a trombone and sax players, and besides a wonderful and never expected interplay, there is a sax solo of the free jazz school that is right on the money!

As the album unfolds, Miriodor comes off as a distinguishable outfit of contemporary music, mostly in its compositional qualities, which provide elaboration and dedication not unlike current label mates Univers Zero, but taken to the lighter side, and exhibiting a lot of playfulness that is Miriodor's own. (7.25/10)

Shortly after Procol Harum had released the monumental single Whiter Shade of Pale in 1967, drummer Bobby Harrison and guitarist Roy Royer left the band to form Freedom. While Freedom is mostly known for its later blues rock releases, featuring a different lineup (see our review of Through the Years in issue #26), this release brings earlier recordings of music that corresponds with the music of Procol Harum and the proto-prog and psychedelia movements of the late ‘60s.

These recordings are of a unique nature amongst pop / rock releases, as they were commissioned by an Italian producer for the avant-garde, erotic film, "Nero su bianco" ("Black On White") by Tinto Brass. While the film is said to be surreal and with almost no dialogue, the songs here rely on memorable tunes and comprehendible lyrics, which are more down to earth than those of Procol Harum.

The music has a rather rough edge for the time of its recording (1968), often favoring a fuzz treatment to enhance the guitar, bass and drums to stupendous, slightly trippy dimensions. And so aside the sophisticated, uncompromising ‘60s pop of "You Won't Miss" with its evasive organ, we get the fierce bass and drums-led "Born Again," the circus-like instrumentation on "We Say No," and wailing guitar presence all over.

The primal use of mellotron and violin in a rock context is also of note to proto-prog devotees, as it is highly accomplished and exciting here. Just check out the masterful integration of strings in "The Better Side" or "The Butt of Deception" and see for yourself.

This re-issue still suffers a bit from a few audible corruptions of the master tapes, but otherwise the sound is impressively rich with details and vibe. No less than seven bonus tracks of alternate versions and single-only songs also add to this marvelous release. (8.25/10)

This live archival release by Univers Zero provides the prime, avant-rock band's music stripped of its studio sterility. Seventy minutes in length, the best of the band's Uzed (1984) and Heatwave (1986) albums is here, in spectacular live versions that make the music come off even darker and certainly less technocratic compared to its studio readings (a serious advantage for most of our readers!). Culled from four different concerts, the recordings are edited to a nailing, concert-like flow.

Whereas on record, the material was drenched in a bit of eighties production standards, these recordings sound less industrial and more natural (and this outweighs any light sonic fidelity issues). The channels do not open and close, allowing the instruments to breathe within the pieces. The keyboards, clarinet and saxes are celestial and mind-slicing at the same time, the bass pumps and resonates uninhibitedly, the drums echo violently ("Parade" features an exemplary, tense drum solo with exciting backing – this is the way drum solos should be executed!). All of these increase the stark atmosphere and provide a darker sense of inferno.

Recorded over twenty years ago, this music hasn't aged a bit. In fact, it is hard to think of something that surpasses it in terms of modernity! The articulate compositions gush with meticulously woven fabric of stringed instruments, brass and rhythms, all living in harmony and yet somehow in terror. This is music that constantly strikes you, in a wickedly playful way. Get it and prepare for a true storm … (9.5/10)

Illegible logos in black metal are pretty normal. As a fan of the genre, you get used to it. Like how the Chinese character for "dog" doesn’t look anything like a dog, but you associate it, so do you know to say "Xasthur" when you see that familiar bleeding blotch on album covers.

What’s worse is when you think a logo is legible, and it sends you on a wild goose chase, compounded by how the labels putting it out have no mention of the band whatsoever on any of their websites, and looking up the tracks in the worldwide CD database yielded nothing. In this case, though, the chase made a superb album all the more appealing. Like, maybe it’s the only promo copy in the world, and I have it!

Turns out the album is Shadows of Leng by Norwegian black metal band Tyrann. Looking at the logo, it looks like "Tyrant," which there are like a million of on Metal Archives. We looked at all of them in hopes of unraveling the mystery. There’s also no name of the album on the cover, no link to a band site on the promo, and only info pointing to labels that have no mention of the band. Nice. Why blame how no one buys CDs anymore when you can ruin your own chances by never even mentioning the release of a new album?

This is the black metal version of the crying shame. Shadows of Leng is a seriously rocking, powerful black metal album. It’s got the low end and rockin ‘tude of Carpathian Forest, the riffs and aggression of 1349 (and it turns out there’s a member of 1349 in the band), the old school vibe of Celtic Frost, the atmosphere of De Misteriis Mayhem, and some elements of new Immortal’s thrashiest songs, all wrapped up in a kickass, brutal and engaging album. The other two guys are also in Tsjuder, which is known to rock as well.

Shadows of Leng comes across as an album by a highly believable band, one that plays their material live and faithfully. The production of this record is strong and powerful, but it isn’t overproduced, so the music can live and breathe. Great bass range on here. Get this killer and shamefully underpublicized CD! (8/10)

Resurrection Macabre is an entirely competent album, but entirely forgettable in the long run. (5/10)

This is exactly the same record as the ones that came before, and spending money on this is as easy as asking yourself: "did I like Warzone?" and if the answer is yes, then the answer is buy. The sound is a little heavier, a little chunkier but the song writing remains the same — the kind that sounds slow even when it’s going fast, but always groovy. The album is filled with fourteen dense, rumbling songs, each one having a particular hook, or groove or theme to give it memorability.

The back of the promo sleeve says "OLD SCHOOL DEATH METAL" and that’s the rule to follow here. Fans of fast, sophisticated Death Metal should look elsewhere. This is all old school, all the time. (8/10)

These days, a good death metal record is one that has memorable songs. There aren’t many of those records around, it seems. While every other band in the genre is busy getting the most clear-cut bass drum sample to fit exactly in line with their sonically sterilized string-sound to fit exactly in line with their non-existent bass to fit in line with... et cetera... and forgetting the most important part, there are still some bands that know that first and foremost they need to write a memorable song before they jump into a studio. Dying Fetus is one of those bands.

But even Dying Fetus, an iconic band in the genre, seemingly cannot escape some of the typical trappings. The most jarring of which is the almost non-existent bass guitar. It’s there alright, but only when the rest of the band stays quiet long enough for it to string out a solo. It’s there again in a few high strung intros, but then quickly fades away again.

Also, the album has to suffer some terrible artwork. The booklet is very sturdy, very high quality, with glossy pages. Unfortunately, the artwork on the front of it, and inside, is a pretty bad "Max Payne" ripoff, but with a very slick photoshop-heavy atmosphere – amongst the lyrics one finds computerized blood, gunshots, even a diseased child sucking a diseased tit. It leaves out the sophisticated noir feel of its inspiration for explicit violence, but still comes off as very uninspired.

But that’s all ridiculous nitpicking because the album is one of the strongest of the year. Each song is memorable and then some. Descent Into Depravity sees the band in line with the rest of their discography, opting for another short but intense album. And of the eight violent songs, there isn’t a single one that feels out of place. It’s no Destroy The Opposition, but only by a very small margin.

The production, aside from the bass guitar, has just the right amount of clarity without sacrificing intensity and grit. The album sounds dirty, especially during the solos, but precise and clear enough during the blastbeat sections.

There isn’t anything new brought to the Dying Fetus formula: Descend Into Depravity still sounds like War of Attrition; sounds like Stop at Nothing; sounds like Destroy the Opposition. And that’s still a good thing.

For fans of the band, this is a no brainer buy. But for metalheads not into the band, this serves as a perfect reminder that death metal can be an intense genre that handles its themes of brutality and violence in a mature and memorable manner. (9/10)

Faust formed in 1992, and their first full-length album is released in 2009, 17 years later.

Checking the line-up, it’s an all-star cast, with metal bass god Steve DiGiorgio, Daray (from Vader, and now in Dimmu Borgir) on drums, and a guitarist from Doro.

However, the funny thing about From Glory to Infinity is that it proves that great players do not necessarily make a great album.

The biggest issue this album suffers from is a terrible drum sound. The drums sound like a series of papers held taught, and flicked with a pen, then distorted and amplified, and sitting above the rest of the instruments in an awkward way. Contrast this highly artificial sound with the highly artificial sound Daray had on the last two recordings he made with Vader: the latter sounded powerful and inhuman, while the former sounds janky. Also, the playing doesn’t seem as tight as on Vader, which doesn’t so much comment on Daray’s ability, but rather puts the reality of the performance on the Vader records into question.

Along with the drums, the vocals are too loud. As is generally the issue with extreme metal vocals that are a hindrance, Faust’s offer little of musical value, being merely bloated, growly placeholders, and are overbearing to what the music is doing. The proof is that the record is more enjoyable during the record’s instrumental sections. If only the drums didn’t sound so janky.

Finally, although the technical instrumental performances on the record are excellent, Faust’s music sounds like more like a slapdash collage of technical parts, rather than cohesive compositions that come together with coherence. Riffs whizz by and give way to seemingly cut-and-pasted floral solos without much flavor overall.

From Glory to Infinity is a decent record whose end does not add up to the sum of its parts. (5.5/10)

PS: We’ve busted on poor Faust enough, but whoever drew the cover art needs to watch less porn. It’s bad enough that women get terrible boob jobs, and even worse when art imitates life and people start drawing fantasy women with terrible boob jobs. Faust’s a pretty cool band name, though.

Magnificent and divine, Orplid's myriad display of neoclassical (and often even neo-folk-ish) versus martial-industrial tunes is nothing short of impressive. German-sung, deep male vocals govern over the militant drum beats, occasionally allowing for some piano or string instruments interludes to emerge and flake the stern and pessimistic landscape with a more sun-washed, warm approach (and some wonderful female vocals as well), which only emphasizes the overall bleakness of the music's backbone.

And bleak the music is, indeed. Bleak and minimal — however, it manages to convey a greater-than-life noble facade; visions of grandeur and a utopian elevated existence beyond the carnal, the animalistic, beyond bestial human subsistence.

Once in a while, one can encounter a truly grand album in the realm of neoclassical versus neofolk versus martial-industrial music. These manifestations are scarce and rare. You will not find many. Orplid's Greifenherz is one of these heart-stopping wonders. Get it now! (9/10)

Continuing what they had begun on their Revelations album, The Prophecy push further their brand of heavy doom / death metal. Into the Light couples highly melodic clean singing and melancholic (not to mention melodramatic) moods alternating with the aural assault of brutish grunts and amplifier-ridden guitars.

Imagine a melodic metal outfit struck with an acute form of schizophrenia, a sort of musical Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde case; grunts of death and sorrow spewed out of the same throat that later on produces almost saccharine-sweet high-pitched vocals, singing shooting lullabies for forsaken lovers.

The clear voice surely belongs to the progressive rock / metal school and is a tad wimpy for its own good, not to mention when being coupled with the vocalist's own austere and vitriolic grunts. Overall, Into the Light is quite a satisfying recording with an abundance of unexplored territories in melodic doom-oriented death metal. (6/10)

MMVIII is composed of two extremely long tracks by which is manifested the creator's interpretation of drone. In a way, these two tracks sound more or less like an endless prologue to something, like song openings of sorts. They generate a (false) feeling as if something is about to occur, is about to explode, and as such, they eventually leave much to be desired.

Borrowing elements from both tortured sonic outfits like Wormphlegm, Bunkur and Funeralium, as well as from the modern godfathers of drone (aka Sunn), Habsyll manage quite successfully to blend the sick, Neandarthal funeral doom of the former with the endless droning of the latter into a unique experience.

It’s not really music, but rather an experience nonetheless. The music is almost completely devoid of any real guitar riffs, obviously, however Habsyll compensate for that by adding extremely powerful and ominous drums and insanely hysterical shrieks.

This singular recording would be recommended for avid purveyors of the above mentioned bands or to anyone who wants to hear something out of the ordinary, or to those who are curious listening to something which this reviewer can only dub as "funeral drone." (6.7/10)

The Russian scene is apparently flooded with doom metal acts, and so is Solitude Productions' roster. They all seem to squeeze into a very tight niche where they begin to sound alike in their ideas and sense of theatrics.

Remember the time when the Norwegian black metal scene, somewhere in the mid '90s, was comprised of about ten musicians, give or take a hand and a head? How the very same musicians were participating in endless number of bands, all at the same time?

The Russian doom metal scene is apparently following these very steps. It's a clique of bands and figures who are connected via their music and passion, but by doing so they are circumcising the very essence of music: individuality.

Abstract Spirit features members of Comatose Vigil and Twilight Is Mine, and their debut album under this latest moniker is not even half bad for what it is. They deliver a kind of majestic, highly melodic, keyboard-laden funeral doom with the right mood, the right pace and the right monstrous growler. So what? So are hundreds if not thousands more bands who do exactly the same.

As good as the music may be, it is funeral doom by the book, hence bland, hence lacking individuality, hence average at best. Hence... (5/10)

One Master's sophomore release starts with a menacing whirlpool of blast beats and a wall of guitars. Then a break — the music slows down, then picks up speed again and blasts some more.

The opening track is quite dull and the rhythm section is uninspired and monotonous, as is at least half of this recording. One Master love their black metal fast and raw and minimal. However, the band's sophomore effort distances the band from the unique voice from their debut: An album full of aural mystery and mysticism, but mostly full of promises for things to come, for a singular path for these newcomers.

After all has been said and done, The Quiet Eye of Eternity is unfortunately nothing more than just another specimen among the countless Darkthrone clones out there. Even when the speed of the music is subdued and more shades of sonic grey could be discerned, and even when some melancholic riffs appear here and there, lending the music its mild dramatic essence, the band's own unique voice is unheralded and does not manifest.

The Quiet Eye of Eternity has been a major disappointment for this reviewer, who has witnessed in almost real-time how a band such as One Master, full of potential and ideas, has unfortunately succumbed to mediocrity and fallen into the copycatting trap. (4.5/10)

Zorny Maroz starts off with some good atmospheric black metal vibe: fuzzy guitars and crystalline keyboard notes signal a record that has some promise... until it becomes apparent that what’s good on this album is purely as a result of copying Burzum.

Sure, Vietah’s keyboards are more ostentatious than Burzum’s, but once the vocals hit, with the same placement and inflection as Vikernes’, other blatant imitations are clear, down to the keyboard track that sounds like the Belarusian attempt at "Rundgang um die transzendentale Saule der Singularitat."

It’s not that Zorny Maroz is a bad black metal album. It’s sometimes clumsy, sometimes good, and generally correct. It’s that there are at least four Burzum albums that are so far superior — and let’s not forget, original — that there’s no real point in listening to this Vietah album. (4.8/10)

That the words "doom art" are emblazoned on the back of the Escape to the Dreamlands digipak might be misleading. Sure, you could get away with categorizing Evoke Thy Lords as doom, but they’re as busy and uptempo as the genre allows, with many frilly elements that will ensure no one will be using more than two "o"s in doom to describe them.

Not that frilly elements are bad things. The two main ones here are female operatic vocals and flute. The vocals are very much in the forefront in terms of the mix and the amount of usage they get. The flute also plays a major role when it appears, which is a good move in this case, as it provides a relatively good hook, and it’s always cool when bands use actual organic instruments rather than synthesizing them.

However, the shortcomings of the vocals are that, in spite of being technically proficient, are too singular in their delivery and composition. The growly male vocals (which are present about as much as the female vocals) are also one-dimensional and monotonous, but that’s not much of a surprise.

Escape to the Dreamlands’ production isn’t at the height of professionalism, but it’s very respectable: You can hear the band was going for big, full sound, and there is little to criticize in the result.

But in the end, Escape to the Dreamlands is little more than a dead average album. This is largely as how the music itself has very little flavor. Sure, the performances are all tight, but what the rhythm guitar is doing has no personality. It’s like there are no riffs in the entire album — like the guitar and bass plays something like generic metal riffing 101, and that’s it. If it weren’t for the flute, there would be nothing for the ear to grab a hold of. This might be ok if the vocals provided very poignant melodic or syntactical landmarks, but it’s like there are a group of musicians playing underlying parts, and none playing the lead.

Evoke Thy Lords’ effort is entirely correct. There is nothing wrong with the album. It’s greatest flaw is it’s artistically dull. It’s listenable all the way through, and you can get a flavor for the album as a whole, but there’s nothing specifically memorable about it, and nothing to make you want to listen to it again. (5/10)

Nebula is probably not the most prominent stoner metal band. It is certainly not as pioneering as Kyuss, nor as creative or of high impact as Monster Magnet. Nebula does rock firmly though, as this fine release demonstrates.

Three BBC sessions (from 2001, 2003, and 2004, with lineups slightly varying around the core of Fu Manchu refugees Eddie Glass and Ruben Romano), sum up to 50 Minutes of music and present the band in a more natural and open production than on past records, not to mention less psychedelic.

The band sounds raw (a bit like a stoner metal take on early, Paul Di'Anno-fronted Iron Maiden; check out the vibrant "Sonic Titan"), but with clarity that contributes not only to the effectiveness of the firm songcraft ("Carpe Diem") but also to the re-evaluation of the band's shrewd control of tones ("Fin") and its moderated jam excursions ("All the Way" with its loosely impressive dual guitar work, and "Strange Human" that at times sounds like Black Sabbath doing a Led Zeppelin-styled blues rock number). (7/10)

Considering how many people there are to coordinate to turn out a Folkearth album (like, 18 across the world is standard), it’s amazing how many albums this Pagan project turns out. However, considering how spotty the albums can be, can blemish a good deal of that luster.

Fatherland is the latest album by the far-flung group obsessed with fathers, victories, and swords. It’s far from their best output. Other Folkearth albums we’ve heard have contained at least a few good songs, but Fatherland is generally a janky collection of often awkward hymns to fantasy Paganism.

The production is thin and weedy, with tinny guitars, clackety drums, and bad MIDI keyboard samples. The song arrangements are simple, which can work, and on Fatherland, sometimes they do. But then the vocals ruin it with often infantile syntax arrangements that repeat over and over. What might have been good as short and sweet is ruined by being ran into the ground.

The vocals are a bit better overall than the other Folkearth album we reviewed this issue, but they’re still not very good. The tonal quality of the harsh vocals are passably mediocre; the clean male vocals sound like the singer can’t quite pull off trying to sound like he’s a proud, impressive warrior; and the female cleans come across as someone’s Slavic aunt who could sing well enough to once be in the village church choir.

Folkearth’s albums are always doomed to a hodgepodge fate because of all the people all over that contribute to the making of the record. Relative to that, though, Fatherland is one of the poorer efforts in this group’s discography. If you find romance in the notion of a band that’s geographically challenged in the extreme, or can get into a band’s music as much because they sing about the ways of old and upholding their father’s sword, then try By the Sword of My Father first. (3.3/10)

The Amenta is fondly remembered for their unique music video for the song "Erebus" from their debut album, Occassus. It had a type of low budget personality and sci-fi special effects that you never see in music videos these days. The video aside, The Amenta were not a very original band, and the attempt to become something "beyond the cliched shit that other bands are content to wallow in," has made them into an offensive load of pretension.

After making such a heavy claim, the band is still using all of the same tried and true extreme metal components. Frequent blastbeats, frequent double bass, and even the plastic-slap tone for the kickdrum. They boast 100 actual recorded tracks per song, but when these extra tracks consist mainly of "white noise" and samples, what kind of accomplishment is that to be overly proud of? The Amenta is essentially aligning themselves closer to the area of grindcore than anything with these elements.

Critisism aside, if you venture towards Non simply seeking a good death metal CD, then you won't be disappointed. They've taken an evolutionary step as far as the band is concerned, yet they haven't trekked into territory that has remained entirely untouched to this date. If The Bezerker and Pig Destroyer had a baby, it would be similar to what The Amenta have unleashed with Non. Non delivers a satisfying blend of death, noise, and grind if you take it for what it is. (6.5/10)

Bloodjinn is a pleasant surprise in the sea of metalcore bands. There are so many metalcore bands today doing the same thing or trying to imitate the same sound. Bloodjinn surpasses this annoying trend and strikes gold with This Machine Runs on Empty.

The artwork and production are great. The only element that seems imperfect are the screams. It's like someone spilled a pot of coffee on vocalist Joel Collin's lap when he was getting ready to record. They sound grating and agonizing in a way less preferable than usual.

The thing that separates Bloodjinn from the rest is the fact that they put emotion into their music and their performances. It's not like your average metalcore that is trying to be heavy just for the sake of heaviness. Sure, there are a lot of thrash riffs abound, yet the band really takes it to the next level with their melodic arrangements. "Mirrored Human" is a fantastic example of that.

This Machine Runs on Empty has perfect tones, and the mixing and mastering is spot on. Bloodjinn have succeeded where many before them have settled for less. In this modern age, bands with this kind of innovation and effort should be admired. (8/10)

In modern times, it is hard for a metal band to get your attention. Many of them resort to props and costumes that just make them look ridiculous, while their music is still fairly uninteresting. Other bands, like Byzantine, recognize the changing times and accommodate them by simply writing better music. Compared to previous Byzantine albums, Oblivion Beckons is immediately engaging and pulls you in for the duration.

Interesting time changes combined with a vocal performance that is swamped in chaos defines the overall tone of Oblivion Beckons, yet the occasional chorus carried by a pleasant vocal melody creeps its way in. There is a great balance between the tones of each instrument and the percussion, which allows the music to have as much impact as it possibly can. There's a clarity to the production, yet highly ferocious performances that allows the spacial clarity to bring even more brutality to the music.

There are more "commercial" aspects to the sound than in previous Byzantine albums, yet the band never delves deep enough into modern trends to detract from the quality of their music. With Oblivion Beckons, Byzantine have created something that is enjoyable from a technical performance perspective as well as heavy and energetic. It’s the perfect combination for both elitists and youngsters. (8.5/10)

Any musician would love to have Don Airey's resume. He has played and recorded with true giants of rock music, including Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Michael Schenker, Gary Moore and Judas Priest. He also stepped into Jon Lord's huge shoes in Deep Purple, and did it admirably (listen to the 2005 release Rapture of the Deep and see for yourself).

Airey’s solo album A Light in the Sky is as diverse as his resume. Two minutes into "Ripples in the Fabric of Time" (and also later, on "Big Crunch") Airey returns to his days in Colosseum II, and recreates the blistering jazz-rock of 1976' Strange New Flesh" (arguably the best demonstration of his creative work) with great interaction between his organs, Rob Harris's guitar and Lidia Baich's violin, as well as some carefully interwoven solos, backed by a mist of modern keyboards. Some of the other instrumentals are of a more symphonic nature ("Andromeda M31"), and few of them benefit from a glorious folkloric vibe ("Sombrero M104," Into Orbit").

As for the songs (most of which are sung by Carl Sentance), "Shooting Star," with its stomping organ, sounds like a lost Deep Purple tune; "Rocket to the Moon" is a fancy blues number not unlike early Colosseum material but in modern dressing, and "Love You Too Much," as its title suggests, is saccharine rock with convincing vocals by Danny Bowes (of Thunder). Some other songs ("Endless Night," "A Light in the Sky (Pt 2)") have a neoclassical rock flavor similar to Richard Andersson's music, only less technically obsessed and with vintage keyboards at the forefront.

Strangely, and despite the diversity, the album does manage to hold as a whole. The tracks have a terrific flow and can blend into each other cleverly. Although no big names are here to support Airey (bass player Laurence Cottle and Harry James are perhaps the most likely to be recognized by our readers, the first for his stint with Black Sabbath on Headless Cross, and the latter for his position in Thunder), or perhaps because of that, the musicianship here is top-notch – everything sounds tight and ego-less.

A Light in the Sky would surely appeal to fans of classic rock keyboards, as Airey utilizes a wide variety of keyboard instruments, including a Hammond organ and Moogs, in the most fluent way. (7.25/10; much higher for classic rock keyboard aficionados)

Skyfire’s Esoteric is like Children of Bodom, but with more elements of Dimmu Borgir. Or maybe it’s like Dimmu Borgir, with more elements of Kalmah, which is like saying Children of Bodom, but with more blastbeats.

Whatever it is, Skyfire’s style is fancy pants, slick, (not) heavy metal. Esoteric does reach some tasty sections, with engaging melodies and energy. What detracts from the album are some awkward / stunted arrangements, how Esoteric fits in unadventurously into a cut-and-dried formula, and how the vocals are a constant, boring rehash of a screamy style that was never really good to begin with. But just when you think you’d rather hear the songs with something else than those placeholder vocals, anything, please, maybe some singing, there’s the last track, with some not very good singing. Maybe no vocals would be best.

Esoteric is an album by a C-level band in the melo death genre. It’s C-level not because the musicians can’t play (they can), but it’s not stylistically original (calling this album "esoteric" is thus a contradiction in terms). If you don’t mind classic Children of Bodom rehashed with Dimmu Borgir mixed in, and you don’t mind the mindless, monotonous, "anguished" vocals that seem par for the course, then you’ll like this album. (5.8/10)

In our recent coverage of Maggie Bell's Best of release, we complained that no Stone the Crows material was included. This release rectifies that, with two CDs of the band's vintage radio performances.

The first CD and the first tracks on the second are clearly the prime exhibits here, featuring the band's original lineup. The material in this portion sounds a bit like Cream, but with a bluesier edge.

The band's rock is soulful, as demonstrated on "Raining in Your Heart" (which appears in two versions), which delivers a moving duet between the powerful vocals of Maggie Bell and the shy vocals of bass player Jimmy Dewar (who would later front Robin Trower's band on classic albums such as Bridge of Sighs).

The band also explores some proto-prog ground on few of the songs, and while this exploration is not really adventurous, the magic in songs such as the beautifully realized, ten minute affair "Freedom Road" lies in the unpretentious approach that corresponds with the band's blues roots, and often translates into some nice interplay between John McGuinness' organ and Leslie (brother of Alex) Harvey's guitar.

The later sessions find the band delving deeper into the blues, and though lacking some of the earlier material's signature touch, these are still effective and credible (the band's version of Freddie King's "Goin' Down," for example, sounds fresh thanks to the organ presence and Bell's performance).

The sound is a bit dirty, and varies throughout, but it's certainly satisfactory. The booklet, however, misses specific information about the sessions (for starters, it doesn't pinpoint the source of each track), which is a shame. (7/10)

Take one part "comic goth" rock and combine that with one part classic theatrical masterpiece and you've got the opening track, "Phantom," from this short EP from Eternal Descent. However, there is a lot more "comic" and a lot less masterpiece with this rendition. It doesn’t help that the whole Phantom of the Opera thing has been done to death at this point by countless bands and musicians.

The main problem with this version is the cheap tones that Eternal Descent used for multiple instruments. Being a core of a male guitarist and female vocalist leaves so many elements left to be programmed in the computer. In most cases, the parts sound generated via point-and-click, and as such sound flat and fake.

"Legends" and "Fallen," the two remaining tracks, are decidedly solid songs in the band's own style. These tracks feature mainly vocalization; in layman's terms, a lot of "oohs" and "ahhs." Only the title track features the lyrics of Andrew Lloyd Weber, and the vocal part of the Phantom is ruined by the cheesy pitch-shifted male monotone vocals. It's not sung, and it isn't growled, yet it manages to be entirely monotonous; even more so than spoken word.

After the adequate and somewhat enjoyable Losing Faith, Eternal Descent have more or less dropped the ball with this Phantom of the Opera EP. (4/10)

Everything about Hate is generic. The band name is so simple that it's practically retarded. Even the songtitles are made up of the same nonsensical bull that the majority of death metal bands go with. They dress like the extended line-up of KISS, are from Poland, and are Satanists. Surprise!

Even the music sounds like a Behemoth clone, yet with highly simplified guitar parts. Admittedly, the drummer is really fantastic, yet the production is very clean and the way the guitar parts are right out there leaves much to be desired as far as mood and heaviness goes.

The so-called industrial influences were basically metallic noise in the intro and briefly on into the first song, "Threnody." After that, it is straight up Polish death metal.

Something can be said about the state of modern death metal. Every band is trying to do the same thing with very little experimentation. As mentioned earlier, the drummer is really incredible, but speed isn't everything. Perhaps it is wrong to expect a little substance out of a death metal band.

Morphosis was described by Listenable Records as "catchy," "innovative," and even "memorable." You really shouldn't trust the people who are trying to sell you something. They can take something mediocre and dress it up to sound like something mind-blowing.

If you dig Behemoth or the Polish scene in general, you could check this out, but Hate gives little incentive to listen to them over one of the already established acts, however. (5/10)

Considering how many groups make successful, beloved careers out of making the same record over and over, it’s really unfair to single one band out and say one knows exactly what to expect with any new record. However, it’s somehow different when that product leaves much to be desired.

Black Cobra does the pummeling, heavy, lumbering behemoth thing well. Their tones are thick, the toms get destroyed every song, and the lot of it sounds like two dudes honestly playing music... as checking out their live shows and seeing how on-stage Black Cobra sounds like their CDs can attest.

Black Cobra’s sound is like grindcore with pummeling groove in the place of speed or blastbeats; like a stripped-down High on Fire mixing it up with Lair of the Minotaur, but technical, but not the kind of technicality that shows off.

The issue, though, is although any moment of a Black Cobra record can get your filthy, metal fist a bangin’, their songs are all the same, and that same song is just ok. The tracks don’t stand out from one another, and they stick to the same route.

It’s tracks like track 6, "Lightning in His Hand" from Chronomega that show what can be done with more depth. Aside from the two minute segue "Glacies En Spiritu" and a token outro on the last track, track 6 is the only major instance of a palpable change of direction within Black Cobra’s main construct. It gives a very tasty variety of texture, mood, and style, building on the song’s composition, punctuating the otherwise standard Black Cobra main style. This section in particular sounds like attentive thought and expression in the sea of the rest of the album, which sounds like a band on auto-pilot, doing what they know how to do so well, that they didn’t think about it.

Great sound, respectable style, but it all sounds the same, except for a couple sections. (6/10)

Following the trend of progressive metal bands releasing "Subheading: The Rock Opera" type albums, comes Xystus. A point worth noting, however, is that Equilibrio features the US Concert Orchestra. Most rock operas being released feature heavy keyboards, yet Xystus take it a step farther. Needless to say, the skills of a real orchestra can’t be reproduced with keyboards. The band knows this, and they often have a violinist or flautist playing high trills.

The guitarists form a solid backing behind the orchestra, yet the orchestra is the most prominent portion of the album. The orchestral composition is so thorough that it could sit on its own. The actual band portion, on the other hand, would seem very empty and unexciting without the orchestra.

The album is split up into two acts that feature five or six songs (or "scenes") each. Every song is a highlight due to the incredibly well-written orchestral parts. Songs like "Act I Scene 5 – Last Birth" are particularly enjoyable for their darker tone and how they introduce the use of growls to add more depth to the story.

Perhaps the most impressive bit of information about Xystus’ Equilibrio is the fact that it has been performed on stage. As printed in the booklet, this album is just a small portion of what Equilibrio really is. It was performed in front of an audience of over 4,000 people in the Netherlands, and the theater work involved over 130 people. That’s not something every other rock opera band can claim, but Xystus is a step above what we’ve come to expect from the rock opera. (9.5/10)

RM: Necropolis sounds like Vader, but a generic version of. It's like all the Vader elements are in place, but it's by-the-numbers. This is kind of hilarious to say about a band that has basically done the same simple thing over and over, but it's like a checklist album with the form, but little soul.

BdV: It sounds way too comfortable. This is supposed to be a death metal band, right? They've seemingly figured out how to reproduce the "Vader blueprint" without strife. There is none of the ferocity, none of the intensity to be associated with a band like Vader. It sounds heavy, but passionless. The band is simply mimicking previous behavior, so the record still sounds like Vader, but only superficially so.

This is kind of a worrying development. The new Nile suffers from exactly the same thing. But at least they've still made a record that is awesome. This new Vader is very tired.

RM: It's the trap of making albums that are technically perfect, but forgetting that part of what makes an album classic is that it's humans playing it with inconsistencies, even when the humans playing it are excellent at playing their instruments. You'll never hear an album on Nuclear Blast with any single little thing out of place, which is boring. It's like Nuclear Blast and Century Media are becoming the Victory Records of metal: all perfectly on their appointed grid-records, but little that's genuinely awesome, from the soul.  

BdV: The problem here is not so much the flawless / boring sound (but of course it's a problem!), it's the fact that not a single song is memorable. The checklist you mentioned previously is firmly in place. This is Vader, all right. But it's Vader playing boring songs. Necropolis sounds like a tired death metal stone rolling off a large hill but not hitting anything in its path. It's fast, alright, but entirely uneventful!

This is another band that is rolling with the times! But all they've been doing is learning new tricks. "Hey, I can make my drums sound like a machine" or "Hey, I can now triple the sound of my rhythm guitar" or whatever. They are futuristic, but totally devoid of soul by this point. A grab bag of technologically advanced sonics! But scratch the surface of that technical know-how and it falls empty and dead. There's nothing there to keep the non-fan entertained for very long. And even you, as a fan, are bored by now.

Not into the drum sound, though. Sounds too controlled and sterile. When the blast beats hit, the drums disappear, and every hit sounds exactly like every other hit. What about the idea of letting Vader play and recording that? It sounds like another example of a big name metal band going to die a sterile death on Nuclear Blast Records.

BdV: It's not too bad. The bass drums are really warm, which is different and I guess nicer to listen to than the sterile, all sample ones. But you're right, as soon as the music becomes too hectic, certain parts of the drum-kit disappear. Or getting softer. That's very disappointing. With the older Vader records, you'd at least get the sense of being knocked around during the blast-beats. But here it sounds like a soft, none too threatening pummel session.

There's nothing memorable about the overall sound at all, it's very warm, cushy and forgettable.

RM: The solos seem to be getting more technical and varied. Maybe it's the new guitarist.

Again with the drum sound/performance: compare Daray in Vader with his performance on the Faust album (also in this issue): The Vader stuff is comparatively inhumanly powerful and flawless. Are they using technological means are they using to make the performance seem perfect? In the case of Vader albums The Art of War and Impressions in Blood, it was impossible drums that sounded fresh and energetic. With Necropolis, it sounds impossible but restrained.

It's interesting to contrast the drums records like Impressions in Blood with The Beast, which Daray is also on. The Beast was right before Vader went with the huge synthetic drum tones. Can you spot the different feeling in the actual performance?

Again ironic: some short, typical Vader songs on Necropolis, but why do they suck?

BdV: Can't recall a single moment of Necropolis that stood out. Nothing is memorable. Hey, you can recognize the Vader songs from the Metallica cover. At least that's something. But how can recognizing other songs be the highpoint of an album?

RM: Avoiding the version with cover songs seemed like the best choice.

It’s as always exciting to have a new Vader album, but it's hard to transcend the general excitement and be enthusiastic about this new album as a collection of songs. Rather, it's a celebration that Vader is cranking it out! Maybe next album will be better. Hopefull, this one is a low point. All bands have those. (6/10)

BdV: A comfortable Vader equals a boring listen. No thanks. (5/10)

So, what would you do with a piano and a drum kit? Would you compose a masterpiece so simple and effective and straightforward, you wouldn't even know you have a grand work right in your lap? Would you do it? More so, could you do it? Karl Daniel Liden could, and has.

Kappa Delta Phi is so beautiful and original, its beauty clashes with its sheer simplicity, which only amplifies the wonder of this musical creation. Liden serves also as a multi-instrumentalist musician on this recording, and uses instruments some of which this reviewer is not even familiar with: Drums, piano, mellotron, harmonium, organs, synths. With the aid of a handful of session musicians (three bass players, a couple of vocalists and another three guitarists), Liden offers a brooding, cabaret-like, metallic-sounding, classical oriented nominee for best album of the past five years or so.

Kappa Delta Phi is melancholic, melodramatic (but much tamed in that regard), almost militaristically-sounding, piano / percussion driven dark cabaret music. The tunes are minimalist and clean without any visible pomposity. The songs are always a plot, a story being told, and in the end of each track, there's always a climax, an explosion of sounds, colors and emotions.

Vaka's debut album is theatrical music for a morbid audience or for broken hearted lovers. Its piano and cello combo, driven by the constant drum bits, induces maximum sadness and emanates pain. The vocalists sing in a semi-growling, semi-clear voice; the slow pace, the electric guitars coupled with the classical instruments, accompanied by those almost-tragic human vocals, produce a buildup of musical suspense and final catharsis seldom found in contemporary music, for this music is potent and powerful; It will grab you by the balls or by your gut and pull hard.

Kappa Delta Phi would be highly recommended for audience who crave for unconventional, extremely powerful and emotional music. Imagine a strange marriage between Neurosis and Swans with a piano and percussion being the main instruments. This music is both phenomenal and mesmerizing! (10/10)

Some of today's underground or non-commercial music releases simply stupefy music critics... or at least this one. Not that these musical creations are so huge (not to mention the mere fact they do occasionally stretch the concept of "music" itself), but rather because they are so poor and empty, they leave the writer in a literal state of loss for words.

What can one write about constant droning effects, pulsating mechanized sounds and one-note keyboard usage? If robots had played their own music (or attempted to), it most likely would have sounded like The Politics of the Irredeemable: Soulless, barren, monstrous and very much dead (all adjectives appear strictly in their negative sense here).

The tracks are hardly ever arranged as conventional songs; they are absent of compositions and rely heavily on dragging and droning constant rhythmic noise that drowns everything in its wake and makes the very concept of music redundant in its presence.

Add some distant human screeches and a mild actual melody on the final track ("Denial, Part Two") and there you have it: Very little substance lurks behind a noisy exterior ornamented with many superlatives courtesy of Crucial Blast's info sheet telling us how great a band The Human Quena Orchestra is. (utter noise/10)

In the Empty Wreckage of a Dream is a highly experimental, bizarre and reflective recording. However, its coldness, emptiness and alienation do not scratch the surface of the listener's attention or psyche for enough time for it to sink in and be studied.

It may have many (or at least some) facets, aspects, depths and dimensions; however this sort of ultra experimental drone meets dark ambient meets noise is so out there that even for experimental music, it would be highly experimental. This oddball of a recording is infused with enough electronics, it alone could have executed a condemned man on the electric chair, fry him to kingdom come.

The album is exclusively "instrumental" (unless you regard some random human whispers on the second track as vocals), the sounds sometimes belch, sometime drone or hum or rattle; some of the time there is a nice percussion that accompanies the steady or the alternating noises and squeaks and electro-gadgetries.

Sometimes the composition begins to resemble something that could almost be referred to as orthodox music, but most of the time the sole musician behind Light of Shipwreck decides to focus on detrimental aural rubbish and electronic mishmash resulting in a sonic gibberish and nonsensical auditory annoyance. Two long tracks full with spaced-out noise, rhythm and hissing sounds with very little in between. (Waste of plastic/10)

Being the godfathers of heavy metal was never enough for Judas Priest, and it kept itself fresh throughout its existence. The band evolved from bluesy roots to progressive leanings (1976's Sad Wings of Destiny), and then nourished the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with albums such as 1979's Hell Bent For Leather and 1980's British Steel. Later in the ‘80s, when pop-metal and synths were becoming popular, Priest proved it was still on the top of the game with the underrated Turbo, and in the early ‘90s, the band released Painkiller and showed it was as fast and deadly as just about any of the then-contemporary metal bands. Even later, with Ripper Owens fronting, the band remained relevant by adopting the modern metal sound of their followers.

Nostradamus finds Priest impacted by current metal trends once again, and this time it's epic power metal that gets the reaction (works like Iced Earth's Something Wicked saga come to mind). However, being the true greats they are, Priest members rise above the influences and create something of their own. In fact, one might be disappointed from this double album if he approaches it with the "metal album" tag in mind, and the reason to this is simple: Nostradamus is much more than a metal album – it is probably the greatest rock opera since Jesus Christ Superstar.

Nostradamus is arguably Priest’s most easy going album, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Vice versa, the mighty Priest sacrifices some of the individual songs’ punch and offers its devoted fans as well as new audiences (if they only dare to try) a meticulously spun concept album that adds to more than just the sum of its parts.

Like some of the band's early material ("Dreamer Deceiver," "Last Rose of Summer"), Nostradamus relies on fine textures, with Don Airey's keyboards augmenting the guitar synths of Tipton and Downing as an orchestral setting. Check out the moving "Alone," with its gentle guitars and its marvelous keyboard mist, and see for yourself.

Furthermore, the album proves that Priest is not just the speed metal pioneer, but also a master of dramatic tunes. There is some furious guitar work on some of the songs, occasionally spiked with a refreshing (to Priest) neo-classical flavor. At the same time, though, the music maintains a symphonic vibe, with the instruments being of one piece, creating a magnificent wall of sound for frontman Rob Halford's storytelling.

Hats off! (9.5/10)

You know what’s really awesome about a band? When it’s a bunch of people that play music together, and their recordings reflect that. Malebolgia is a purported band, with guitarists, bassists, vocalists, and a drummer. That is, if by "playing drums," you mean "programming a drum computer so the percussion sounds inhumanely fake and sterile."

To give Malebolgia credit, the music on Requiem for the Inexorable is super tight and insane. However, it isn’t enjoyable to listen to, because Requiem for the Inexorable is a product of embracing the hollow value of making records as brutal and extreme as possible at the expense of believability, artistry, and likeability.

Music is not a sporting event. It’s art. Malebolgia’s approach is one espoused by a legion of bands in which the form is of higher value than the content, and song writing is apparently an expendable commodity. Every song on Requiem for the Inexorable is tasteless and interchangeable in its focus and execution, with a token breather track halfway through the album, and an execrably goofball rock tune at the end.

So, hats off to Malebolgia for making a sonic whirlwind. It’s a technical success, but for a musical and artistic success, it’s way better to listen to an old band, that might have played slower, with errors and inconsistencies, and who wrote songs. That’s what being human as, and that’s what’s most compelling. Try Entombed’s Clandestine for a taste of that. (4/10)

Kurai, meaning "dark" in Japanese, is a spinoff of the Italian progressive rock band Yugen — in itself is an interesting band, but Kurai is something else.

Unlike Yugen, which was built around the modern, avant prog dialect, Kurai is first and foremost a modern creative outfit, fed from and striving towards the sublimes of classical music.

This musical ensemble features harp, piano, percussions, saxophones (including tubax – a modified saxophone that sounds like a tuba), clarinets, electric guitar and bass, but even more so it makes a remarkable usage of spacing. The vibe is of free music, but the discipline is so total, and the phrasing is so striking and whole.

Tracks like the opening "Herbert Quain" are budding with shiny brass and sweeping piano notes, contradicted by an ominous undercurrent. Other tracks, like the ambient "Cavedio" or the disturbing, animal "L'eco Delle Fiamme" deliver with a sense of mutiny and chaos in the air, and yet everything sounds well under control.

There's a free jazz quality in the strokes of piano and percussions of "Einigermassen Ruhig," but it is no less of a chamber music composition, with its trapping brass movements. "White" is even braver, featuring a premier (if not pioneering) use of mellotron in chamber music context, and closing the album with a symphonic-like timbre.

Deep, abstracted and astounding, Kurai's debut release is a fantastic, enriching musical experience. (9/10)

Bridges to Burn is not as interesting as 16's Drop Out. Maybe it's the fact that 13 years have passed since then, or maybe it's the fact that they started resorting to what no serious sludge band should do carelessly: stoner rock riffs.

Old school metal has aged, no matter how extreme you make it or how retro you think you are, so it's always better to go modern, right? Wrong.

At least for 16, the change to modern doesn't feel right. It's just bland... even if you see it as a heavier stoner rock album from a new band.

Bridges to Burn got the atmosphere of a nu metal album with sludgecore vocals and none of the aggression that sludge is well known for. This isn't Grief at all, nor is it Eyehategod... nor is it interesting enough to deserve comparison with those bands. At the same time, it's not Kyuss and it's not Unida. It's a middle point between screaming like a psycho and being aggressive, with none of the pros of any. Bridges to Burn just isn't interesting.

It's not that it sounds bad or that it isn't enjoyable in the right mood, it's that every single song sounds the same and they forced them all to sound too stoner, like their contract said to do. Processed vocals, palm muted riffs, power chords, power chords and more power chords, everything in Bridges to Burn forms an all too conservative piece of modern metal that was afraid to be sludge yet wasn't good enough to be stoner doom.

Bridges to Burn feels like a forced move, somehow, and we've seen enough doom bands go modern and fail horribly (Candlemass, Cathedral, I'm looking at you).

Controlled. It's all too controlled, too limited, too bound to normality by their one guitar tone and one or two kinds of vocals, by their unidimensional songs and their lack of pace changes. The album is one long 46-minute track by a band that doesn't sound too convinced about playing what they are playing. Technical proficiency is not what Bridges to Burn is lacking, but variety, aggression, or at least being a little bit less stupid about it all. As it is, it sounds like a chore, and paying for one of those is kind of crazy. On the other hand, it can be decent as a gateway, "hey, random nu-metal fan, check this out, it's called metal!" kind of album.

Only if you're someone just getting into heavier music and won't notice how bland something like this really is, but want to listen to heavy stuff (let's not lie to ourselves here, Bridges to Burn is actually really heavy) should you take the time. Maybe older 16 fans will like it, but don't get this thinking it's a new Drop Out, if you don't want to be sorely disappointed. (3.5/10)

They’re making a huge push for Secrets of the Moon over here in the States: nationwide tour, special PR agencies, all in support of the new album, Privilegium, which comes in a fancy-shmancy digipak (ummm... an apple with a bite out of it? And the bite is matte on a gloss cover?) with claims of all sorts of instrument manufacturers' endorsements in it.

The music sounds on par with the hype: big, full production, not like Dimmu Borgir big and fake, but solid and heavy, a little like label mates’ Helrunar’s sound, or a little in the ballpark of Shining’s Halmstad, but not as good.

The big clash here is that for all the window dressing and fanfare, Privilegium is a not particularly good album by a band that has never been better than decent.

The main problem is the songs are too long for their own good. The proper songs are around the 8- to 9-minute mark (with one at 13 and a half), which would be fine, but they go nowhere, which makes the experience all the more banal. Adding all the songs up, Privilegium runs 73 minutes and 45 seconds, which, for this record, is about 35 minutes too long. The high point of the record is when the damn thing comes to a merciful end.

Here’s why the songs don’t work: it really helps a lot when songs have at least one central theme that anchor them, so you can tell the songs apart. It gives them personality. Secrets of the Moon, much like a band such as Deathspell Omega, have songs that begin, go on for a while (in this case, a long while), and then at some point, end... not that you can tell where because since all the songs do this, it sounds like one huge, way too long song.

We admit we haven’t been following too closely, but isn’t the "orthodox black metal" themes on Privilegium a new development... dare we say, a bit of bandwagon jumping? (Yup, we checked on our copy of Stronghold of the Inviolables, and it was all generic black metal dark stuff.) See here, all the lyrics along the lines, of "great father, I am yours to follow. Great father, I am yours to swallow." Ouch. Yes, the lyrics are pretty painfully cheesy, culminating in how one song rambles on for a while, and ends with a parenthetical non-sequitur, "(wipe your ass with the Mona Lisa)."

Wait, maybe Secrets of the Moon name their solos, just like Windham Hell used to, and the Mona Lisa one is what the solo is called. That might explain why one song says "(cocaine trumpets)" seemingly randomly in the lyric sheet.

I wonder what the atrociously cheesy, 3^rd-rate bluesy wah solo on one of the last songs is called. Maybe it’s "(die)" because it was the last nail in the coffin.

Seriously, now, what is Secrets of the Moon doing on the generally mighty and artistically relevant Prophecy Records, and how did this band get this far to begin with? Ok, they’re not a bad band, but they are a definite 2^nd to 3^rd-tier group. The only thing less interesting than listening to this record would be seeing this band live, because on stage, you can’t enjoy the quality of the album’s production. (Pick your nose and wipe it on your shorts/10)

There's this particular feeling of dread involved in watching a once interesting band crash and burn, and end up being something capable of recording The Scythe.

At the same time, it's impossible not to disregard the warnings of myriads of reviewers and old fans, maybe even out of an even more morbid kind of curiosity, and try that one terrible album by the once great band just to see how bad it can get. Call it morbid curiosity, call it whatever you will, but while it's not the most fulfilling thing, it's just unavoidable. (Even more when you get a copy of it for review, but that's a whole new chapter)

Saying that The Scythe is terrible is an oversimplification. It's true, it IS terrible, but it's not just that it's terrible, it's that it should be unthinkable for a band that released one of the best power metal albums ever (Heathenreel) to record, let alone release, something like The Scythe... not even as a bad joke, or just to fulfill a contractual obligation.

Not only is it bad in comparison to Heathenreel, it's just plain bad compared to every single serious power metal album you could probably think of. It's nearly unreviewable, there's just nothing to say about an album that only serves to show how feeble a band can be, trying to mix their own sound with a fashionable genre with embarrassing results just to try to appeal to younger audiences. It's not that they fuse their music with metalcore, it's that they are about as convinced of what they are playing as your average politician is about what he's saying. And that's without even mentioning the moronic modern-metalcore-wannabe vocals and the run-of-the-mill riffs, even if one had to be extraordinarily generous and call them "run-of-the-mill."

But, you see, it's not just about being bad, it's worse, it's about their approach being incoherent. The Scythe is a metalcore album by a power metal band. Thank God they haven't started calling it something retarded like powercore or something. It's not metalcore as in "kind of In Flames-ish but angrier," it's metalcore as in "really real metalcore with breakdowns and everything, done by a band who's obviously doesn't know how metalcore works." The cruel part is that there are still power metal elements somehow, like they want us to remember that they are the same Elvenking we know. Oh well, sometimes trying to get a bigger audience backfires. (2/10)

PS: The Scythe is actually worse than the newer Two Tragedy Poets (...and a Caravan of Weird Figures), so go figure. (Editor’s note: impossible.)

It's weird when you realize that, essentially, you're writing about the artistic merits of a band named Cuntscrape. Go back 50 years and they'll tell you, at best, that your brain isn't working correctly. Thankfully, music has gone a long way and we can now safely say that "Cuntscrape" is perfectly within the boundaries of a normal band name. Or so we'd like to think.

But anyway, the thing about Cuntscrape is that they are serious enough about their stuff as to actually play songs, but not serious enough about it that they'd be caught talking about how their music is a landmark for postmodern music as a whole. What we have here is a somewhat Crotchduster-ish approach to the genre that, unlike every single Crotchduster clone, manages to make the music actually sound good and not follow the usual route of porn sample, followed by 30 seconds of blastbeats and random crash cymbals with noise over it all, followed by feedback, follwed by silence. And, thankfully, you can actually hear what each instrument does, the production is that good. Really, be glad it's not just badly produced gibberish with programmed drums and lots of filler.

See, you can always expect porngrind to be silly, and of course Cuntscrape is silly (just take a look at the cover!), but it's surprising that they have riffs on there, that samples can be found in the middle of the songs, too, and sometimes even add a certain undescribable musical something to them, and that the drumming isn't just blastbeats.

Obviously, there are some parodies (one of them even includes "Grim and Frostbitten" in the title, so go figure) on there, some straight grindcore parts, tons of samples and lots of nonsensical stuff for porngrind fans to enjoy, but it's not an album just for those hardcore porngrind fans. It's as accessible as Crotchduster, maybe even more, and it's full of, gulp, music... specifically, metal. You know, the kind with guitars, without spandex, without shoegazer influences, and with headbanging moments. That kind.

Sure, it's a bit too silly sometimes for the average metal fan and you can't write pretentious paragraphs about how it reminds you of natural phenomena, but who cares, it's as fun as grind can be, as developed as porngrind can be, and as interesting as extreme metal can be. (8.5/10)

For some odd reason, all bands associated with any single gothic or gothic-like genre must have badly programmed drum machines. Sure, grindcore bands can have the same problem, but where grindcore is not at all serious, gothic bands insist on saying that they are, indeed, the reincarnation of evilness or vampire lords or who knows what kind of silly creature. Naturally, when listening to a darkwave band, you expect them to have a badly programmed drum machine, so realizing that, while simplistic, the drum machine on this particular dperd album is decent enough should give them some points over most other gothic-ish darkwave bands.

Regalero Il Mio Tempo is not a bad album compositionally, and while it doesn't suffer from godawful drum programming, it suffers from many other common nuisances of darkwave and related genres: MIDI.

MIDI is cool for composing and all, but when you try to use it in compositions you want to pass as complete, releasable and definitive... not so much. Hell, even if it's over other instruments, it can work, but as a stand alone, make-all-background-music (except the guitar) thing? Not much. It feels like an amateur youtube cover, not like musicians. That, and some really awkward and uncalled for dissonances in the bass that make it obvious that dperd is not precisely Lycia.

On the other hand, the melodies themselves are often elaborated enough to give Regalero Il Mio Tempo a more serious, kind of loungey, edge and make for some really interesting moments scattered throughout (namely the opener track and "Dimentica"). At the same time, the production is barely enough to make the album sound professional, even for those few not-MIDI things.

Yet Regalero Il Mio Tempo sounds ok. It sounds cheap, it's repetitive, but what's on there is interesting enough for some plays if you're bored. Dperd does a good job at escaping the compositional cliches of darkwave, but end up succumbing to the production cliches. But it's ok. Just ok, though, unless you actually like MIDI, for some demented reason. (5.1/10)

It's curious how time works for music. Sometimes, albums that were considered classic back then won't stand the so-called test of time and end up sounding like amateur or juvenile efforts (as is the case with many of punk's classic albums).

Skullflower's IIIrd Gatekeeper, on the other hand, sounds as fresh as new, even though it’s worth lies as much in explaining how drone came to be as being something to actually be listened to. Like the great and quite informative booklet that comes with it says, IIIrd Gatekeeper was the gateway for many people back then into Skullflower.

Nowadays, it's the perfect gateway album for drone music. It's concise, it's atmospheric, and it's the obvious base for pretty much 80% of most modern drone... but it's also the perfect example of non-boring drone. It's nowhere near, say, Sunn O)))'s Flight of the Behemoth in speed (or lack thereof), but it has something most drone bands don't: development.

Sure, most songs are just one riff played on and on, but that's just the base. What's interesting is what's over it: the sounds they make under and over it, and the atmosphere it all creates — the kind of development closer to space rock than to modern drone.

What makes IIIrd Gatekeeper worth its time even now is that it's from a whole different paradigm from what most drone fans are used to. It's not the badly produced eternal vrooooooooom of cheap drone bands, but more like Earth's riff-based stuff, except less blues-oriented.

While newer Skullflower releases are more modern, it's IIIrd Gatekeeper that shows the most about how drone came to be, and seeing it in such a nice package makes it much better.

It's a perfect album for those who think that drone is all noise and no talent, really, and even more for those who think that you can't play drone without inhuman amounts of delay and sustain. IIIrd Gatekeeper is drone by the pre-hipster generation with none of the pretentious aura of the genre's most recent releases.

Sure, you won't find solos or Buddhist chants here, and you won't find the conceptual development of Sunn O)))'s latest albums, but part of what makes IIIrd Gatekeeper great is that they didn't try to shove down everyone's throat that they were the best drone band ever, but instead opted for making an album with actual songs on it. Weird, I know, but that's precisely why IIIrd Gatekeeper is a must.

No matter how good any reviewer tells you it actually is, IIIrd Gatekeeper is a must for every single music fan because of the impact it, and Skullflower as a whole, made, and because it's one of those few eye-opening albums that pop out every few years. But it's really good, anyway, influential or not. (classic/10)

Bands just love to get worse with every release, especially bands from hardcore-associated genres. However, while most bands are doing that, there are bands like Thursday and Envy, reaching new audiences not because of sudden opportunistic genre-changes but because of experimentation and development.

Thursday started as a post-hardcore band, yet these days they are more often asociated wth post-rock, sounding like a mix between At the Drive In, Saosin and, coincidentally, Envy, and your typical post-rock band. Envy has gone from screamo band to epic screamo post-rock ensemble in just some years. Both bands' original sounds are still there, but they've advanced miles ahead of their starting point.

Thursday's side of the split is brilliant from start to end. From energetic Saosin-ish parts to mammoth build-ups lasting several minutes, it manages to go all over yet mantain cohesion. It doesn't waste a single minute, yet it takes its time to show its tricks. While its high points are definitely the post-rock Explosions in the Sky-like parts, even the more emo side of it is worthwhile. Definitely Thursday's best release so far, with great guitarwork and vocals all around. Flawless as long as we don't consider the great but kind of awkward remix of one of their tracks included at the end of their side.

Envy's side of the split is Envy. Or, rather, the new Envy. The minimal electronic genre-influenced, spoken-word-filled, layered-guitar-abusing Japanese almost-screamo band that now sounds much more like Toe / Lite / Miaou / random-Japanese-math / post-rock-band than Rites of Spring.

Like on the Jesu split, Envy are far more ambient now so it doesn't feel agressive all the time like it did in their earlier releases, nor like the constant, sometimes unjustified, catharsis of their mid period. It's a more polished and mature approach. They still use the three-syllables a line approach to vocal lines that every single Envy fan recognizes, but their songs have more build-up and far more defined melodies. They still have a screaming vocalist, but he feels more justified and in context now, and they still do screamo, kind of, but they are obviously a post-rock band now. But, genre aside, if you like post-rock, you'll love their side of the split because every single melody on it is what post-rock melodies should be: layered, cathartic and texturally complex.

This is an outstanding split by two of the most relevant bands nowadays. Both Thursday and Envy show us just how good a split can be when both bands work towards creating a piece of art instead of just trying to sell to the other band's audience. While older Envy fans might not like the melodic approach of the new Envy and older Thursday fans will miss the post-hardcore sound that characterized Thursday back then, it's clear that both bands are not the bands they started out as. Thankfully. (9.1/10)

Fans of Arjen Lucassen have come to expect certain signature sounds that he uses on most, if not all, of the albums he has composed. Things such as the low, percussive synth tones, and vibrantly layered vocals.

At first glance, On This Perfect Day presents itself deceptively with the use of percussive synth to open the album. As the song progresses, however, you will quickly realize that you're entering into a completely different universe than you had come to expect.

Something particularly enticing about the Ayreon album 01011001 was the inclusion of Jonas Renkse. His soft vocals complemented progressions that sounded much more bleak than we'd come to expect from Lucassen, and Guilt Machine is expanding on these elements.

The atmospheres explored On This Perfect Day are so much darker and treacherous than Lucassen's previous work. Jasper Steverlinck bridges the gap between delicate, subtle vocal performances and powerful wails. Lucassen himself also provides backing vocals. This leads to the occasional mingling of vocalist melodies, which is definitive of his compositional style.

Guilt Machine is essentially a combination of the atmosphere of The Dream Sequencer and the heavier metal of 01011001. It doesn't feature the over-the-top amount of vocalists, allowing a more consistent listening experience. The songwriting is epic and adventurous (most songs reaching past the 10 minute mark) yet the songs never seem cheesy in a theatrical way. Although quite long, the songs don't rely on a large amount of repetition to gain that length. On This Perfect Day can be replayed to a ridiculous extent, being more and more enjoyable, and revealing more secrets, with each successive listen.

Lori Linstruth, Lucasseon's partner and personal manager, wrote all of the lyrics for the album. The change from sci-fi themes to much more realistic topics of guilt and regret is quite refreshing, and matches the atmosphere perfectly. Linstruth also does every guitar solo on the album, and their quality rivals that of Lucassen's own work.

We were blown away by 01011001, but find Guilt Machine to surpass it and set the bar higher. One of the best prog rock releases of the year (9.2/10)

Existence is Futile is an exciting metal record that brings together the styles of death and thrash, and infuses a lead guitar sensibility more commonly found in much lighter forms of the rock/metal world, like Van Halen, Steve Vai, or glam.

It all comes together as polar opposites of intense, drilling passages, deftly giving place to bright, sunny, ostentatious, melodic leads. Existence is Futile can often remind of labelmates Necrophagist in the application of rhythm or the unusual, playful approach to the guitarwork, but Revocation’s style is much different than Necrophagists, so thankfully there is no cry of copycat here. It’s precisely the contrast in approaches that gives Existence is Futile its character — there is room to breathe; the variety of mood and inflection of the guitar passages and frequent change of rhythmic textures provide highlights and punctuation to the songs, which, however, do all run together, culminating in an album that seems to arbitrarily end.

Yes, Revocation’s songs are better than on Necrophagist’s Epitaph (but not as good as on Onset of Putrefaction), but you still get the sense much of the compositions are about performance flash more than they are about writing songs. On the most down of sides, the vocals offer nothing approaching the rest of the album’s elements (think Wintersun’s harsh, aggressive raspy stuff for some kind of comparison). As is often the case, the vocals are just there; nothing particularly great, but not horrible, about them. In contrast, the best moments on this album are on the instrumentals, or when no vocals are present.

Existence is Futile’s production, as can be expected from a Relapse Records release, is highly polished and bludgeoning. This issue alone, we’ve also talked about Dying Fetus and Man Must Die, which have similarly super produced, clean-as-a-whistle productions. As a result, the human-ness can get a little blurred with the sense that machines played this record, but it’s very good, uncommon fun, regardless. Tasty. (8/10)

We can’t help but feel bummed about the new Vader, Necropolis. So instead of being grouches, we thought it a better idead to dig up a reason why Vader is one of our favorite bands ever.

Normally, we think live albums are pretty superfluous, but Vader’s Live in Japan is such a great record, it’s on par with being a great studio effort.

The 20-track album was recorded around the time of De Profundis and Black to the Blind — a great time to be a Vader fan. Live in Japan features songs mainly from those two albums, with a couple from The Ultimate Incantation, and three covers, including the mostly unfortunate version of "Black Sabbath" (which, when contrasted with the cover of "Raining Blood," shows that Vader has no business playing slow.)

Aside from having a very high amount of Vader’s best songs ever, the greatest part of Live in Japan is the energy you can feel from a band you can tell wrote, practiced, and played the songs as a group, and one of those performances was captured, along with an audience. Contrast that with the sense you get from the latest Vader, Necropolis, which feels more like a collage of music done not by a band, but a single person with a session drummer.

Finally, when we call Live in Japan a 20-track album, it’s because we’re talking about the Japanese release of the CD, which features two "bonus" tracks that are "bonus" relative to the US release more so in the sense that they were torn out of the non-Japan version as they were added in. If you listen to the US version carefully, there are a couple times when the music is faded out. That’s because there are supposed to be songs there, and on the Japan version, they are "Incarnation" and "Dethroned Emperor," both played as well as the rest of the music on the album, and both shamelessly removed, and interrupting what otherwise seems like a full concert, from beginning to end, without edits, which is another element that gives Live in Japan its appeal. It’s without a doubt the live record that has gotten the most play (and continues to) of any live disk in this reviewers multi-thousand CD collection.