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Sullen Guest - Chapter III

Sullen Guest - Chapter III (2021)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 1
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
3.5
Clan Rating
3.5
Sullen Guest - IIIIXXI

Sullen Guest - IIIIXXI (2018)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Sullen Guest - Phase

Sullen Guest - Phase (2022)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Sullen Guest - Will You Greet the Sullen Guest as an Old Friend?

Sullen Guest - Will You Greet the Sullen Guest as an Old Friend? (2015)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Goatess - Blood and Wine

Goatess - Blood and Wine (2019)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 1
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
4.0
Clan Rating
4.0
Arka'n - Zã Keli

Arka'n - Zã Keli (2019)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Reliqa - I Don't Know What I Am

Reliqa - I Don't Know What I Am (2022)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Reliqa - Eventide

Reliqa - Eventide (2018)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Reliqa - Afterlight

Reliqa - Afterlight (2018)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Into Another - Ignaurus

Into Another - Ignaurus (1994)

Added: December 03, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Serenity - Nemesis AD

Serenity - Nemesis AD (2023)

Added: December 04, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Serenity - Memoria

Serenity - Memoria (2022)

Added: December 04, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Salem's Law - Tale of Goblins' Breed

Salem's Law - Tale of Goblins' Breed (1989)

Added: December 04, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Holland - Early Warning

Holland - Early Warning (1984)

Added: December 04, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Gordi - Kraljica smrti

Gordi - Kraljica smrti (1982)

Added: December 04, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Excarnated Entity - Mass Grave Horizon

Excarnated Entity - Mass Grave Horizon (2023)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Excarnated Entity - Stillborn in Ash

Excarnated Entity - Stillborn in Ash (2019)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Cruciamentum - Obsidian Refractions

Cruciamentum - Obsidian Refractions (2023)

Added: December 04, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Cruciamentum - Paradise Envenomed

Cruciamentum - Paradise Envenomed (2017)

Added: December 04, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Calvary Death - Serpent

Calvary Death - Serpent (2009)

Added: December 04, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Varaha - A Passage for Lost Years

Varaha - A Passage for Lost Years (2019)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Briqueville - IIII

Briqueville - IIII (2023)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Briqueville - Quelle

Briqueville - Quelle (2020)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Briqueville - II

Briqueville - II (2017)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Briqueville - Briqueville

Briqueville - Briqueville (2014)

Added: December 08, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Night Crowned - Tales

Night Crowned - Tales (2023)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Night Crowned - Rebirth of the Old

Night Crowned - Rebirth of the Old (2022)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Bestial Holocaust - Into the Goat Vulva

Bestial Holocaust - Into the Goat Vulva (2012)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Bestial Holocaust - Temple of Damnation

Bestial Holocaust - Temple of Damnation (2009)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Bestial Holocaust - Final Extermination

Bestial Holocaust - Final Extermination (2006)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Jim Jones and the Kool-Ade Kids - Trust Me...

Jim Jones and the Kool-Ade Kids - Trust Me... (1986)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
X-mas Project - X-Mas Project Vol. II

X-mas Project - X-Mas Project Vol. II (1995)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
X-mas Project - X-Mas Project

X-mas Project - X-Mas Project (1986)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
X-mas Project - Bangin' Around the X-mas Tree

X-mas Project - Bangin' Around the X-mas Tree (1985)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Bloodcum - Death by a Clothes Hanger

Bloodcum - Death by a Clothes Hanger (1988)

Added: December 05, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Undertow - At Both Ends

Undertow - At Both Ends (1994)

Added: December 06, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Undertow - Stalemate

Undertow - Stalemate (1993)

Added: December 06, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Undertow - Everything

Undertow - Everything (2004)

Added: December 06, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Undertow - Edge of Quarrel

Undertow - Edge of Quarrel (1995)

Added: December 06, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Left to Suffer - Feral

Left to Suffer - Feral (2023)

Added: November 29, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Drown (CA-USA) - Product of a Two Faced World

Drown (CA-USA) - Product of a Two Faced World (1998)

Added: December 06, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Drown (CA-USA) - Hold On to the Hollow

Drown (CA-USA) - Hold On to the Hollow (1994)

Added: December 06, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Neurotech - Ave Neptune

Neurotech - Ave Neptune (2023)

Added: November 29, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Crest of Darkness - Evil Knows Evil

Crest of Darkness - Evil Knows Evil (2004)

Added: November 20, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0
Crest of Darkness - Project Regeneration

Crest of Darkness - Project Regeneration (2000)

Added: November 20, 2023
Ratings: 0
Reviews: 0
Site Rating
0.0
Clan Rating
0.0

Clans

The Fallen
The Fallen

Members: 133

Releases: 6427

The Gateway
The Gateway

Members: 52

Releases: 2318

The Guardians
The Guardians

Members: 133

Releases: 8505

The Horde
The Horde

Members: 175

Releases: 10097

The Infinite
The Infinite

Members: 114

Releases: 5059

The North
The North

Members: 152

Releases: 11033

The Pit
The Pit

Members: 156

Releases: 4916

The Revolution
The Revolution

Members: 35

Releases: 3606

The Sphere
The Sphere

Members: 25

Releases: 964

As Ugly As They Wanna Be

The debut E.P. from this Californian band would see them set the world alight for a short period, primarily off the back of the massive hit single "Everything About You" which was played to death in my high school days. For that reason, "As Ugly As They Wanna Be" was never far from my ears as a teenager so when I noticed that it was on the Metal Academy database under "Funk Metal" I thought it might be fun to see how it's aged. I certainly didn't remember Ugly Kid Joe being a metal band per se so I was curious to see whether they might be yet another supposed "funk metal" band that would provide further proof for my existing opinion that the subgenre isn't really justified.

I was never a fan of Ugly Kid Joe if I'm being honest so I wasn't ever really expecting that I'd rediscover a long lost love for "As Ugly As They Wanna Be" & I'm glad that was the case because I found the first four tracks to be pretty flat, particularly "Everything About You" which I quickly discovered I harbor a burning hatred for these days. It's only the last three tracks that see my interest being peaked with the cover version of Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf" being the heaviest number & the clear highlight. Funk metal number "Funky Fresh Country Club" is also pretty entertaining, as is the frantic 25 seconds of speed metal closer "Heavy Metal". It's just a shame that the first half of the release was so uninteresting really as the tracklisting never manages to recover.

"As Ugly As They Wanna Be" is often tagged as a hard rock & funk metal hybrid although I beg to differ (I know... big surprise there). There's really aren't any tracks that I'd suggest allign with the classic hard rock model here. Instead, we see numbers like "Madman", "Too Bad" & "Everything About You" possessing a much sleazier & more poppy sound that directly aligns itself with 80's glam metal as far as I can see. There's just enough metal on show to qualify for the Academy too though in my opinion. I'm just not sure that there's enough "funk" metal as such with only "Whiplash Liquor" & "Funky Fresh Country Club" taking that direction. That leaves me in a quandry about what would be a better tag though as there isn't another metal subgenre that's better represented here so perhaps I should just let it go.

"As Ugly As They Wanna Be" isn't terrible but it's certainly pretty disposable & lacking in substance. There's no doubt the band can play & front man Whitfield Crane has a decent set of pipes on him but I can't say that I ever feel like this E.P. has the potential to command additional airings in the future. If you live for bands like Extreme, Electric Boys & Living Colour then you may disagree but I'm sure that there must be better material out there for you than this uninteresting record that's resigned itself to the annuls of history through a dated sound & a lack of focus & ambition. I'm afraid teenage girls have other things to listen to these days.

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Daniel Daniel / December 07, 2023 01:15 AM
Obedience Thru Suffering

I didn’t get into New Orleans sludge metal establishment Crowbar until much later than some as it wouldn’t be until my return to metal in 2009 that I’d first give one of their albums a crack. I’d very quickly find myself traversing their entire eight-album discography in quick succession from there & tended to find that I liked Crowbar a lot from a purely stylistic & conceptual point of view but that their albums often suffered a little from poor production which saw them never quite managing to reach their full potential. 2001’s “Sonic Excess In Its Purest Form” would be the first record to break away from that curse in my opinion & it would become my go-to Crowbar release over the many years since. The band’s 1991 debut full-length “Obedience Thru Suffering” offered me the least appeal from memory, even though I still remember quite enjoying it. I haven’t returned to it in something like 14 years now though so it’s definitely about time I reassessed that position.

Despite what my vague recollections may have been telling me, the production job on “Obedience Thru Suffering” is actually quite acceptable & shouldn’t be a problem for too many listeners. The quality of the music is way better than I was expecting too, even if it is a touch samey. To offset that characteristic though, the consistency of the song-writing is very strong with no weak tracks included. The album probably just lacks a few more genuine highlight tracks with “My Agony” being the only one that I feel reaches tier one status.

It's pretty common to see “Obedience Thru Suffering” tagged as both sludge metal & doom metal but, despite the album undeniably being chock full of enormous doom riffs, I’m not sure the doom tag is really necessary because sludge metal is essentially a biproduct of doom to begin with. There’s a detectable hardcore flavour to most of this material (particularly in the depressive & gravel-throated vocals of front man Kirk Windstein) that keeps the album centred in sludge territory for mine but doom fans will still be able to relate to it pretty comfortably too. I might be being presumptuous here but I’d be very surprised if Celtic Frost wasn’t an influence on Crowbar as the riffs take a similarly simple yet crushingly heavy format a lot of the time which can’t be a bad thing now, can it?

On the evidence here, it's hard to understand how “Obedience Thru Suffering” isn’t talked about in the same breath as Crowbar’s next six or seven albums to be honest. It’s been many years since I revisited those records so perhaps I’ve simply underrated some of them but I tend to think it’s more a case of this one being underappreciated. I’m guessing it’s a retrospective opinion based on fans of Crowbar’s later material finding the album to be a little different to what they were expecting as the band would only get angrier & more oppressive from here. That doesn’t mean that “Obedience Thru Suffering” should be overlooked though & I strongly urge you to add it to your essential Crowbar list, particularly if you’re into sludge metal artists like Acid Bath, Eyehategod or Melvins.

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Daniel Daniel / December 07, 2023 12:45 AM
Bang
Glad I was turned on to this record in the forums ("The Roots Of Metal"), I really enjoyed this early classic. It is 1972, so heavy metal wasn't quite as established yet but this was definitely a heavier album than others at the time and you can see the influence here for other bands going further. Take that blues melody and scream over it with tuned down guitars and we got some solid fun listen. I think Future Shock is the heaviest song and probably my favorite. A slow burn that feels like Black Sabbath was in their turntables. This would go on my list of early metal albums to hear the history. 
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Shezma Shezma / December 05, 2023 08:59 PM
Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest

I've certainly been aware of West Virginia metalcore legends Zao for some time now due to my past involvement with The Revolution Spotify playlists however I'd never taken the plunge with a full album before jumping into their highly regarded 1998 third album "Where Blood & Fire Bring Rest". It certainly sounded like it might be right up my alley on paper but I have to admit that I've been left with a fairly middling (if not necessarily disappointing) outcome. Here we see Zao presenting us with a punk-heavy brand of metalcore with a reasonable amount of experimentation going on that never really convinces me that the band are deserving of the praise this record inevitably seems to draw. The vocals of front man Daniel Weyandt aren't amazing to tell you the truth. He's got one of those really wet & gurgly blackened screams that sounds like he's trying too hard but hasn't really got what it takes. I felt very similarly about Converge singer Jacob Bannon during the first half of his career actually but Converge had the power to pull it off regardless. I'm not so sure about Zao as I find them to be less intense & a little easier on the ear.

To be clear, I'm not saying that I don't enjoy "Where Blood & Fire Bring Rest". It's a pretty decent metalcore record overall but the highlights ("To Think of You Is to Treasure an Absent Memory" & "Ember") don't reach the elite level & there is a flat section during the second half of the album that sees me losing interest temporarily (see "Fifteen Rhema" & "For a Fair Desire"). The musicianship is pretty decent but the song structures sometimes push the friendship, there are more generic metalcore breakdowns than I'm comfortable with & I find the Korn-ish nu metal parts to be a little tedious. So, it's fair to say that I find the album to be a decent way to pass the time but I'm unlikely to return to it in the future. I definitely prefer the more visceral material that bands like Converge, Snapcase & Disembodied were delivering at the time.

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Daniel Daniel / December 04, 2023 09:47 PM
Enveloping Absurdity

Albeit done in a completely piecemeal manner, I have probably listened to Enveloping Absurdity at least ten times over without ever taking the opportunity to sit down proper with it and listen to the album end-to-end. Finally getting around to some critical listening time with it this past week I feel I have finally been able to do a full review some justice. With their Demilich, Adramelech and latterly Tomb Mold comparisons being obvious from the off, Phobophilic offer a wide-ranging snapshot of death metal influences on this their debut release. Unafraid to slow things down to a death-march, Incantation-esque pace along the way, this four-piece from North Dakota showcase their range and capability nicely over eight tracks of thick and cloying death metal.

Running sonic melodies around tracks such as Those Which Stare Back like some mini horde of nefarious demons, there is an accessible urgency to Phobophilic’s sound that avoids the catchy and goes more for the complete experience. All instruments sound like they play their part on Enveloping Absurdity. Structures feel like they accommodate all parts of the group, whether it is the assured yet uncomplicated drum patterns or those harrowing melodies that stab through most of the tracks on the album as the guttural vocals and ever-present bass add the real density and weight to proceedings, each component of the band gets valid airtime.

The lead work is crisp and soaring at times, firing grim light out of the unfathomable darkness that enshrouds the sound. Like futile gestures of hope, or beacons of false security they offer some levitation from the murk that clings to the notes and riffs overall. As the album progresses towards its midpoint things seem to take on even more of a proficient standard with instrumental track Individuation being an unexpected high point for me which leads into the equally excellent The Illusion of Self.

For a debut release, Enveloping Absurdity embraces all that I love about death metal. It explores the true aphotic nature of the genre and offers some glimpses of light around accessibility into the dank underbelly of this beast. Yes, there are times where it loses me just a bit as they go off into perhaps too familiar territory and I find myself wondering if this is a little too close to worship as opposed to a celebration. Overall though this is an excellent album that I really should have explored as a full experience far sooner than I have.


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UnhinderedbyTalent UnhinderedbyTalent / December 04, 2023 04:58 PM

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