Dear Maelstrom (and Maelstrom readers),

Happy fifth anniversary! Yes, five years ago, in February of 2001, Ingmar “Steppenvvolf” Schultz and I started our little project. And nearly five years, 40 writers, 2,810 album reviews, 203 interviews, and 98 live reviews later, we’re going stronger than ever. But who’s counting?

Some of you might have noticed we didn’t have an issue last month. We were thinking of you. We had a little problem with our database, and before our intrepid web master, Jose, could get it straightened out, the month was already half over... not much of a spotlight for our grand anniversary bash!

So this issue is a bit of a throwback to the immense Maelstrom issues of old, back when we posted every couple months and had reviews in triple figures. Count ‘em, 102 album reviews, three interviews (with metal producer non-pareil Fredrik Nordström, old-school death metal heavyweights Bolt Thrower, and dark ambient project Fear of Eternity), and a report from Paris of the mega death metal Cryptopsy tour.

As always, we’ve got a killer contest for you. And here it is:

This month, we've got some copies of Dragonforce's new power metal overkill album, Inhuman Rampage. To win, be one of the first to answer this question correctly:

Dragonforce comes from England and has an Asian band member, Herman Li, on guitar and backup vocals. Name another metal band NOT from Asia with an Asian band member, and name that band member. That band must have released a studio album that has been distributed to the public worldwide.

Do you remember that we had a contest for the latest Helloween album a few months ago? Thank you all for entering, but almost all of you answered the question wrong. We wanted a list of all of Helloween’s *studio* drummers, namely Ingo Swichtenberg, Uli Kusch, Mikky Dee, and Dani Loble. Those are the only four men who have appeared on a Helloween studio record. Live drummers, or drummers in the band before they recorded, do not count. Those who read carefully are now enjoying their albums.

And speaking of great albums, the end of a year in a music publication should always include the staff’s best of lists, and here is our current staff’s picks, which we’ll get to right after we answer this reader’s mail, which is opportunely about our top lists:

----Original Message Follows----
From: <steven_grakini@hotmail.com>
To: <roma@maelstrom.nu>
Subject: top lists
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 17:29:46 +1100

G'day,

I like the way you cover Leviathan's releases. Anyway of getting a hold of your top album lists for the last few years.

re steve

Hi, Steve,

Thanks for writing. You can check out our top lists by looking through the editor's greeting at or around February of every year we've been in existence.

cheers,

Roberto Martinelli

THE MAELSTROM STAFF’S TOP ALBUMS OF 2005

ROBERTO MARTINELLI’s top albums of 2005

1. Pagan’s Mind – Enigmatic: Calling
2. Circus Maximus – The 1st Chapter
3. Helloween – Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy
4. Cryptopsy – Once Was Not
5. Opeth – Ghost Reveries
6. Nevermore – This Godless Endeavor
7. Hacride – Deviant Current Signal
8. Pillory – No Lifeguard at the Gene Pool
9. Kamelot – The Black Halo
10. Manticora - Seven Deadly Sins
11. Origin – Echoes of Decimation
12. Vader - The Art of War

worst albums/biggest disappointments of 2005

Negative Approach
Dornenreich – Hexenwind

LARISSA GLASSER’s top 10 albums of 2005

1. Lurker of Chalice - Lurker of Chalice (Southern Lord / USA and Total Holocaust Records / Europe)

Billed as one of Leviathan's side projects, Lurker of Chalice is one of a kind. A slower, more down-tuned malady than his other works, this CD dredges up parallels with old Swans, Dead Can Dance, Christian Death, Coil, even contemporary dissonance composers such as Kryzystopf Pendercki, Iannis Xenakis, and Gyrogi Ligetti.

Layered guitars, heavily delayed minor-melodic lines, subterranean samples, and moaning vokills that sound like they burped from beneath a subduction zone season this work, and each listen reveals still more levels of misanthropic glare, wrath of the forsaken, and apprehensive despair. Beautiful, and mandatory.

2. Leviathan - A Silhouette in Splinters (Profound Lore Records)

Leviathan’s Wrest released so many splits and releases this past year, I had to hold back from placing every one of his items on this list. Suffice it to say that everyone needs to buy everything he ever puts out. Be on the lookout for a new split with Sapthuran on Battle Kommand Records, which should be released by the time you read this.

What sets A Silhouette in Splinters apart from other Leviathan works is its all-instrumental, droning, indeed sub-oceanic approach to sound and darkness. Percussion and vokills take a distant back seat to swelling guitars, slow attack, and ambient string molestation. The effect is similar to the work of Hovercraft, Painkiller (on Execution Ground), Michael Gira’s Drainland, and Howard Shore's soundtrack to the David Cronenberg film "Crash."

This item has sold out from Profound Lore during the intervening months, meaning that, alas, your first stop for A Silhouette in Splinters is eBay. However, the Battle Kommand CD reissue last month of Profound Lore's vinyl-split Xasthur / Leviathan may provide a glimmer of hope (or despair, more appropriately) for Leviathan fans who wish to hear yet another side of Wrest's seemingly bottomless talent.

3. Voivod - D-V-O-D-1 (Music Video Distributors)

Previously, the only way one could catch a Voivod video was to endure VH-1's exhaustion of glam and butt rock dreck on the so-called program "Metal Mania." Now the videos, concerts, earliest demos, documentary footage, television appearances, and even artwork are here for you to watch without the imposition of anemic, vapid hair metal.

Previosuly tendered a fair helping on MTV's 80's/90's run of "Headbanger's Ball," Voivod's videos for "Psychic Vacuum," "Tribal Convictions," and "Astronomy Domine" were paragons of concept, invention, mind-bending effects, and visual narrative. Their music had a natural translation to the video medium, mainly because drummer Away so ably steered the jagged visual depictions of this progressive thrash juggernaut since its very inception.

The opening footage of guitarist Piggy (Denis D'Amour) laying down tracks for "The Unknown Knows" (from their 1989 MCA album, Nothingface) is bittersweet, because it highlights the extreme loss his death this past year from cancer means for the world of metal. Like Elvis Presley vs. The Beatles, there are Dimebag Darrell people and Denis D'Amour people. Long live Piggy!

4. Ammit - Hammer of Darkness (From Beyond Productions / Displeased Records)

Surprising, vicious, malignant, almost terrifying in its razor-sharp extremity, Ammit's latest is a born classic.

This is one of those cases where listing song highlights is useless. Each song is in its own right, a flesh-searing, blood-spraying, poser-sniping ANTHEM.

Although this ferocity is not unprecedented (Slayer's Reign in Blood is still my primary encylopedic entry for HEAVY METAL), Ammit's vast improvement from the Mass Suicide / Steel Inferno release deserves to be disseminated like malevolent, obligatory, colon-cleansing medicine.

5. Sargeist - Tyranny Returns (Moribund)

Moribund’s reissue of this cassette atrocity (previously on Warmoon Records) is one of the absolute best black metal records of the year. Tyranny Returns stands on its own because the material in these songs incorporates the best of what black metal has to offer: super-fuzzed out guitar and bass, blizzard blasthate, Transylvanian hauntings, squeezed death breath that makes the Nazgul sound like Teletubbies, and finally, insofar as the EXECUTION of this material goes, a seemingly bottomless acumen of what black metal can do to the listener. These elements stride alongside lo-fi audio mockery and tape dropouts (which have been remastered so well that they sound like an essential feature of the material). Hail Moribund!

Positioned at the forefront of the Finnish Black Metal Scene (growing by leaps and bounds with every duskfall), Sargeist are one of the sharpest blades cutting into the skin of The Christ. If you want to hear the trace elements of this highly formidable band, pick this up immediately.

6. Twilight - Twilight (Southern Lord)

Wrest rises again, this time playing drums for the long-anticipated black metal “supergroup” Twilight. Along with the unholy Azentrius (Nachmystium) and Malefic (Xasthur) on guitars and bass, Imperial (Krieg) on bass and vokills, and Hildolf (Draugar) on vokills.

The project took some time with 4-track tapes sent back and forth between members, but the results are subterranean and unorthodox. Save for a few clunkers here and there, the songs give the listener a feeling of floating abandon, and in places an almost dreamlike sensation of smothering. There may be more releases forthcoming from this unit. Ancalagon (Crebain) should get in on Twilight, if he’s around.

7. Hrimthurs - War of the Ages (Ewiger Hass Productions)

An obscure one-man project from Melbourne, Australia, this double CD of dynamic black metal and keyboard hatescapes is a surprising and wholly engaging listening experience. Definitely worth seeking out for fans of early Darkthrone, but the second CD of strange soundtrack narratives work really catapults this artist above the competition.

8. Fear of Eternity - Toward the Castle (Moribund)

Meld ultra synth-sadness of the most melancholy film soundtracks (Moroder, Goblin, Penderecki) with mid-paced black metal descent, and you get this evocative debut release from lone instrumentalist Andrea Tilenni.

Hailing from Sicily, Fear of Eternity disproves the notion that black metal cannot reach new realms. Although nary a blastbeat in his repertoire, Tilenni’s keyboard-dominated compositions of extreme gloom radiate with confidence and innovation.

9. Strapping Young Lad - Alien (Century Media)

Strapping Young Lad is so fucked-up, but with this release they’ve pretty much outdone themselves. Hyperactive guitar runs, majestic synthesis, unrelenting challenge, layered voices, excessive profanity, and exquisite drumming (what do you expect, it’s Gene Hoaglan) give Alien immense blast range. Somehow evocative of Motorhead, Cheap Trick, and even good old No Means No, SYL’s renditions seem to grow more dexterous with each new release.

10. Mercyful Fate - Melissa re-issue CD/DVD. Roadrunner (orig. rel. 1983)

Finally, how can we resist?

Hugely influential, Melissa was Fate’s debut guided tour of the underworld. Along with the beautiful twin guitar work of Hank Shermann and Michael Denner (their accomplishment stands among the tallest: Murray / Smith, Tipton / Downing, and King / Hanneman), the songwriting on this album still mesmerizes more than a generation later. Considered apart from a couple of reformations, King Diamond’s highly lucrative solo career, and the recent Shermann / Denner project, Force of Evil, Melissa captures Fate at their zenith.

The reissue is fairly generous, offering as many bonus tracks as the album proper (mostly from BBC Radio 1 Sessions, which launched the band into stardom), along with a DVD of three songs performed live at The Dynamo, Holland 1983. Along with the optional commentary by King, the clips offer a brief but concise insight into the notorious live show that the band became known for.

I think Melissa’s still with us.

RICK LUNA’S Top albums of 2005 (in alphabetical order)

Annihilator – Schizo Deluxe
Byzantine – And They Shall Take Up Serpents
Confessor – Unraveled
Crowpath – Son of Sulphur
Cryptopsy – Once Was Not
Darkane – Layer of Lies
Dark Tranquility – Character
Dying Light, The – The Killing Plan
Exodus – Shovel Headed Kill Machine
Hypocrisy – The Arrival
Into the Moat – The Design
Ion Dissonance – Solace
Nevermore – This Godless Endeavor
Nile – Annihilation of the Wicked
Red Chord, The – Clients

RYAN LOOSTROM’s best of 2005

1. Meshuggah – Catch 33
2. Strapping Young Lad – Alien
3. Coprofago – Unorthodox Creative Criteria
4. Darkane - Layers of Lies
5. Hyatari - The Light Carriers
6. Hypocrisy - Virus
7. Corrosion of Conformity - In the Arms of God
8. Red Sparowes - At the Soundess Dawn
9. Opeth - Ghost Reveries
10. Lalu - Oniric Metal
11. Frantic Bleep - The Sense Apparatus
12. Behold the Arctopus - Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning
13. Arsis - A Diamond for Disease
14. Byzantine - ...And They Shall Take Up Serpents
15. Between the Buried and Me - Alaska

MATT SMITH’s favorite albums of 2005

1. Cryptopsy – Once Was Not
2. Cephalic Carnage – Anomalies
3. Naglfar – Pariah
4. Meshuggah – Catch 33
5. Impaled Nazarene – Death Comes in 26 Carefully Selected Pieces
6. Rob Swift – Soulful Fruit (re-release)
7. Muggs/GZA – Grandmasters
8. Soilent Green – Confrontation

IGNACIO COLUCCIO’s top 20 for 2005, in alphabetical order:

Acid King – III: Easily the best stoner release of the year, the female fronted Acid King releasing such an awesome album wasn't really a surprise, seeing as all of their stuff is as good as III.

Boris – Pink / Mabuta no Ura: I honestly can't decide on which one's better. Mabuta no Ura is Boris' cutest side, similar to Flood, while Pink is its more stoner side, similar to Heavy Rocks. Whatever, both of them are brilliant in every way imaginable.

Buckethead – Kaleidoscalp: Buckethead is crazy. And a genius. Kaleidoscalp just makes it obvious. Avant-garde, weird, noisy, atmospheric, everything.

Confessor – Unraveled: Aaaaaah, the best comeback album ever made, such an awesome piece of the most original doom available.

Coprofago – Unorthodox Creative Criteria: Ok, it wasn't as good as Genesis, but it was still worth a 9.8 at the very least. Easily one of the best tech acts ever, and not as Meshuggah-worshipping now.

Defacing – Spitting Savagery: Bruuuuutal, technical, and plain awesome, Spitting Savagery is my pick for the best death metal album of the year.

Dredg – Catch Without Arms: While not as good as El Cielo, it's still one of the best rock albums of 2005.

Gackt – Diabolos: A big big step forward after the mediocre Love Letter, Diabolos is a fantastic, original and, above all, catchy album.

Hyatari – The Light Carriers: Seeing as Sunn O)))'s latest wasn't as good as expected, The Light Carriers takes the crown as the best 2005 drone album.

Jesu – Jesu: Jesu is easily one of the best bands to come out of the drone doom genre, and probably the more original. While Heartache was much more emotional, this one's more drone oriented, and it's just amazing.

M83 – Before the Dawn Heals Us: This year's most emotional work, M83 made a masterpiece out of sometimes simplistic synth-driven, indie-ish emotional rock.

Maaya Sakamoto – Yunagi Loop: Now without Yoko Kanno, the cutesy JPop singer released one of the most mature albums of her career, even if much different musically.

Monolithe – Monolithe II: The best funeral doom album of the year, no contest.

Mournful Congregation – The Monad of Creation: Hallelujah! A full length from Mournful Congregation, and just as good as expected. One of the best funeral doom bands still around.

Pantheïst – Amartia: Oddly, Amartia surpassed what was their best release, the 1000 Years demo, but with a less funeral approach.

Queens of the Stone Age – Lullabies to Paralyze: Mainstream, MTV/Radio-friendly, blahblahblahblah. Lullabies to Paralyze is a catchy, perfectly crafted, rocking album.

Reverend Bizarre – II Crush the Insects: Masterpiece after masterpiece, I honestly don't know how they can keep up with that pace. Covering Burzum or playing traditional doom metal, they can do it all.

Sigur Rós – Takk: Probably the most straight-forward and traditional album by Sigur Rós, Takk's still one of the single most beautiful albums ever made.

Tokyo Jihen – Shuraba (single): A horribly underrated jazzy/poppy jrock band, releasing what could be one of the best singles ever made, if only for the third song on it.

YOB – The Unreal Never Lived: The last in my list is the sludgy stoner doom band YOB, now with a far more original style but still as good as its early classics.

JOSHUA GOTTLIEB's Top 50 of 2005 and other obsessions:

– 50? Isn’t that excessive? You haven’t seen my CD shelves. (or stacks of new CDs he constantly gets – Roberto)

– Criteria: doesn’t adhere to the parameters of what was released in 2005, but what made it onto my stereo, computer or iPod (finally!) in the past year, and kept coming back again and again.

– Couldn’t stop playing it if you put a gun to my head: Jesu’s Jesu

– Blissful discovery: Nadja and the work of its mastermind, Aidan Baker (multiple top albums for 2006 to be sure).

– Essential cinema: “The Devil’s Rejects” and “Syriana.” For very different reasons. Obviously.

– Books: galore. But was particularly obsessed with Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and its sequel, Children Of God brutal, beautiful and indelibly etched in my brain.

The Top Ten albums:

1. Jesu — Jesu
2. Nadja — Body Cage
3. Torche — Torche
4. Munly — Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots
5. Port-Royal — Flares
6. Queen Adreena — The Butcher and the Butterfly
7. Beneath the Lake — Silent Uprising
8. Earth — Hex; or Printing in the Infernal Method
9. Minsk — Out of a Center Which Is Neither Dead Nor Alive
10. Stares, The — Spine to Sea

Eleven to Fifty (in alphabetical order):

Aereogramme — Seclusion
Anorexia Nervosa — The Redemption Process
Basinski, William — Melancholia
Bass Communion — Ghosts on Magnetic Tape
Bianchi, Maurizio — M.I. Nheem Alysm
Big Business — Head for the Shallow
Blut Aus Nord — The Work Which Transforms God / Thematic Emanation of Archetypal Multiplicity
Bjorkk, Henrik Nordvargr — Vitagen
Chalk, Andrew — The River That Flows Into the Sands
Corrosion of Conformity — In The Arms of God
Corrupted — El Mundo Frio
Devil’s Rejects, The — Original Score
Devil’s Rejects, The — Original Soundtrack
Disembowelment — Discography (3 CD)
Gojira — From Mars to Sirius
Grouper — Way Their Crept
Hanzel Und Gretyl — Uber Alles
Irepress — Samus Octology
Jesu — Heartache
Lungfish — Feral Hymns
Lurker of Chalice — Lurker of Chalice
Maeror Tri — multiple CD reissues of out of print material
Make A Change… Kill Yourself — Make a Change... Kill Yourself
Monarch — 666
Mono / Pelican — Split (12”)
Nadja — Truth Becomes Death
Nokturnal Mortum — Weltanschauung
Ocean, The — Fluxion
Open Hand — You and Me
Pelican — March Into the Sea
Part, Arvo — Te Deum
Raison D’Etre — Requiem For Abandoned Souls
Red Sparowes — At the Soundless Dawn
Red Sparowes / Gregor Samsa — Split (12”)
Ruins of Beverast, The — Unlock the Shrine
Smith, Steven R. — Crown of Marches
Starwood — If It Ain’t Broke, Break It!
Tegan and Sara — So Jealous
TenHornedBeast — Woe to You, O Earth and Sea
V/A — Run the Road (Grime Compilation)

PAL “THE POSTMAN” MEENTZEN’s tops and flops of 2005

Tops:

1. Ansur - Axiom
2. Hellveto - Klatwa
3. Holy Moses - Strength, Power, Will, Passion
4. Arch Enemy - The Doomsday Machine
5. Gorefest - La Muerte
6. Twilight - Twilight
7. Leviathan - A Shadow in Splinters
8. Lurker of Chalice - Lurker of Chalice
9. Xasthur - To Violate the Oblivious (vinyl re-release)
10. Horna - Envaatnags Eflos Solf Esgantaavne
11. Secrets of the Moon - The Exhibitions
12. Locus Mortis - Inter Uterum Et Loculum

Flops:

1. Hellgoat / Legions of Astaroth - split: sheer ear torture
2. Macabre Omen - The Ancient Returns: dull, dull, dull
3. Nattefrost - Terrorrist-Nekronaut PT. 1: vainly meant to be funny
4. The Gault - As Once Before Us: Artsyfartsy stuff going nowhere
5. Taliesin - Should be in here cause it was meant to be dreadful

AVI SHAKED’s defining highlights of 2005:

In 2005, Van Der Graaf Generator, one of the 70’s mightiest bands, reunited for a short period, releasing a double album and performing a few concerts. The first section of the new album, Present, is less hysteric than the band’s past efforts, yet it still thrills, which might actually suggest an older and wiser band. Banton’s staggering keyboards are now modernly electronic, and Jackson’s distorted saxes are still capable of scorching your brain. The second section finds the band jamming and exploring in post rock tones, emphasizing, as the title suggests, that it is everything but stuck in the past.

Another major band that made an attempt at restoring the glory days of the 70’s is Judas Priest, which released “the second (and final) part of 1976's pseudo-conceptual Sad Wings of Destiny” (as the band calls it), Angel of Retribution. It’s a strong album that certainly echoes the aforementioned (and possibly Priest’s most progressive) classic album. I only wish the band, unlike Van Der Graaf Generator, would stay together long enough to finalize a new album that would hopefully provide a modern angle on Sin After Sin, my favorite Priest album and the one that followed Sad Wings of Destiny, and the album that saw the band melting relentlessly, just prior to taking a more anthem-driven course.

2005 saw not only modern takes of the past, but also a dedicated reliving of it, thanks to bands like Witchcraft (Firewood) and Icarus Witch (Capture the Magic). Also driven by the classics was the release of Petra Haden’s ambitious attempt at recreating The Who Sell Out, probably The Who’s most psychedelic album, using only her vocals – a playful effort that refreshes the perpetually fresh original with style and gracefulness.

And while “Nostalgia burns in the heart of the strongest,” as David Sylvian once wrote, it is time to move on! After all, there were some truly innovative releases this year as well: The Gold Standard managed to integrate progressive rock with post rock in a humble yet gripping fashion; while Henning Pauly managed to pour new life into metal with two varied and partly demented releases (Frameshift’s An Absence of Empathy and his own Credit Where Credit is Due.)

Both Subterranean Masquerade and Opeth released metal oriented works of magnificent depth and dark beauty (Suspended Animation Dreams and Ghost Reveries, respectively), while Grundik+Slava’s Frogs offered a fascinating electronic journey (the duo has also recently unleashed a live album available for a free download.

Also seeing the light this year was the much anticipated release of Hot Fur’s debut album (worldwide and with upgraded content), as well as some brilliant live releases documenting the more recent activity of the free jazz maestro Ganelin.

Moving unto less peripheral territories, these proved to be no less gratifying, mainly thanks to two brand new releases. The first one is Avishai Cohen’s At Home, on which he epitomizes everything he has done and pushes further. Full of grandeur, At Home is a colorful yet beautifully restrained and comfortable work of fresh jazz.

The second is the much anticipated Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple, a work full of clever, emotional songwriting, brilliantly realized with the typically conquering and ever developing adventurous Fiona Apple spirit. I only wonder how much more time it would take until the original, multi layered Jon Brion takes of the album (the ones that leaked to the internet) would be officially released. It would be a crime if they weren’t.

MEGAN LEO’s tops of 2005 in no particular order

Iron Maiden - Early Years two-disc DVD

A lot of the material is not new, but there is plenty for the Maiden fan to get into. Especially the live shows, which feature both Dickinson- and Dianno-era footage, plenty of shots of Eddie in all his onstage glory, wondrously cheesy videos, and a DVD devoted completely to a documentary discussing the bands early years. (boy, did they go through a lot of drummers!)

Absu - Mythological Occult Metal

I love Absu. This two-disc release has a disc devoted to less readily available material (such as three tracks from Temples of Offal) and alternate versions (in the case of "Stone of Destiny," whose other version is more widely known as being a track off Tara). Disc two of the set has live versions of such stellar tunes as "The Thrice is Greatest to Ninnigal" and covers of Destruction's “Beastial Invasion” (Proscriptor's Schmier impression is actually uncanny), "Swing of the Axe" by Possessed, and Mayhem's "Deathcrush." Absu is so interesting, and this collection is every bit as interesting as any of their studio releases. It shows their progression from the death metal stylings of Temples of Offal to the more blackened reaches of Baratharum:V.I.T.R.I.O.L and their very black thrash Storm of Cythraul.

"I wanna see at least one neck snap in the joint, at least oooooooooooooone," Proscriptor shrieks before a live track.

Dark Funeral - Attera Totus Sanctus

The Swedish black metal assault that is Dark Funeral. This disc is filled with vile, melodic black metal riffs and pounding blast beats that one would be hard pressed to out do. Definitely essential.

Destroyers from the Western Skies - American Black Metal Compilation

This comp features tracks by Leviathan, Xasthur, Summon, Kvlt ov Azazel, Krieg and lots of noteworthy others. It’s raw and filthy in all the unholy glory that is black metal. This comp is a success in proving to those on the other side of the pond that Americans have something equally disturbing, misanthropic and eerie to offer to the legions of blasphemy.

Cold Northern Vengeance - Arising Dungeon Cult

Atmospheric, blasting, melodic and well composed black metal. Essential black metal listening.

Demonic Christ - re-releases of Demonic Battle Metal and Punnishment for Ignorance

These two releases (put out by blackmetal.com) are mostly composed of older material, but also contain demo tracks, live tracks and multimedia tracks to supplement the older (but difficult to obtain) material. Demonic Christ is intense, blackened, sometimes harsh and raw, furious metal.