Sonny's Forum Replies

Isole - Anesidora

Released 10th March 2023 on Hammerheart Records

Swedish doomsters Isole embrace the more epic side of doom metal and consistently produced some killer material throughout the first decade of the new millenium, with albums such as Bliss of Solitude and Silent Ruins sitting near the top of my all-time epic doom metal list. Unfortunately as the '10s came around, the band began to plateau and appeared to be resting on their laurels somewhat, sounding more and more formulaic. Their output throughout that decade was reasonable enough, but lacked the punch and grandeur of their earlier material and marked a noticeable downturn in quality. Now Anesidora marks their first full-length of the "twenties" and a hope (from me anyway) that things have taken an upturn once more.

Well, sadly, it appears that things have not changed markedly at all. The band have made a couple of attempts to change things up a bit - a viking metal-like influence on opening track The Songs of the Whales is something a bit different and on a couple of occasions they go for some harsh, growled vocals, but they aren't very convincing to be honest and just make matters worse. The riffs are fairly anodyne and the vocals sound flat. There are a couple of decent solos, but generally speaking this is a particularly unmemorable collection of tracks. They do incorporate a nice keyboard sound on several tracks and I wonder if the album may have benefitted if they had beefed up that aspect for a more atmospheric affair. I enjoy doom metal best when I can connect with it on an emotional level, which is usually achieved either through a sense of deep melancholy, an overwhelming feeling of massive weight through crushing chords and tectonic riffs or, especially with epic doom, a triumphalist sense of power and glory. Sadly, Anesidora ticks none of these boxes and even though it is plain that as musicians Isole are exemplary, they seem to have lost the ability to craft songs that speak to these elements within us, which once they were well capable of.

This is not a terrible album by any means and is technically fine, it just seems to be lacking any real heart and I have listened to so much doom metal by now that this just doesn't cut it for me anymore. I need a bit more than by-the-numbers doom metal nowadays, but that is all that this is really. I won't be adding this one to my Isole collection I'm afraid and that saddens me because I don't like to bad-mouth bands I have enjoyed in the past.

3/5

Yes I was aware of that. Was just looking for an opportunity to share that example of blatant plagiarism.

Ah, right you are. I'm just not sure if my use of irony and sarcasm always comes across as I intend!!

Hi Ben, do you mind adding Isole's latest album, Anesidora, please.

I can't imagine Lars would ever have sanctioned ripping off another band's work!!

Quoted Sonny

Underground NWOBHM outfit Bleak House disagree. "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" anyone?

Just for the record, I was being sarcastic. I actually wouldn't put anything past Lars, he seems like one of the world's great entitled bastards.

I quite like the Satan, Ritual & Black Sabbath records you listed Sonny but it's probably a reflection of how strong a year it was that none of them were ever really in the running for inclusion in my top ten. I'm afraid to say that Raven & I don't get on at all though. We have a long history of not seeing eye to eye.

Out of interest, if you take another listen to Ritual's "Rebecca", do you think it's possible that Metallica copped the main riff to "For Whom The Bell Tolls" from that song? It's obviously a much rawer, messier version of it but I'd suggest that they did personally.  What do you think?

I have a similar reaction to Manowar as you do with Raven. I could just never take them seriously with their real men play on ten bullshit then prancing around in those weird fur getups that seem like costumes from a porno version of Conan the Barbarian!

I also believe Court in the Act is a classic NWOBHM album and should be much better known than it is.

I'll check "Rebecca" out tomorrow and get back to you, but I can't imagine Lars would ever have sanctioned ripping off another band's work!!

Anvil - Forged In Fire (1983)

I remember back in the early 1980s Anvil were quite often featured in mags like Kerrang!, but back then, being a lot younger, I was apt to make harsh and completely unbased snap judgements about things and had decided early on that Lips looked like "a bit of a twat" so promptly ignored anything that Anvil put out. I did see the documentary about them, The Story of Anvil, and it did end up with me rooting for the dogged Canadians, but it is only recently however, over the last couple of months in fact, that I have finally checked out any Anvil releases and I guess it's me who is the twat because I have thoroughly enjoyed their first couple of albums (although the debut is lyrically quite embarrassing) and so I have missed out on many years of Anvil enjoyment.

So to album number three, 1983's Forged In Fire and, for me, this is the best one yet. Anvil strike me a little as how Venom may sound if they were better musicians and ditched the horror/satanic imagery - and I mean that as a compliment as I love Venom. Most of the tracks are highly-charged, speed-driven rippers with some really cool riffs and impressive lead work from the unjustifiably maligned (by me) Steve "Lips" Kudlow that owe a fair bit to post-Killing Machine Judas Priest. Opener Forged in Fire includes a Stargazer-like section where Lips let's loose with a soaring solo and the following track, Shadow Zone, has another brilliant extended solo during it's latter section that show exactly how egregiously I had misjudged poor old Lips who, it turns out, is one hell of a metal guitarist.

It's not all a complete love-in from me though and Forged In Fire does contain a couple of clunkers, the worst of which is Never Deceive Me and, to a lesser extent, Make It Up to You, both of which sound like possible attempts at producing tracks for radio play. Butter Bust Jerky has a really odd-sounding chorus too, otherwise it is great with more red-hot soloing from old Lips. The middle section of the album does hit a bit of a plateau, but the closing duo of the searing Motormount and Winged Assassins ensure that the album ends on a high.

All in all this was a very satisfying listen and a really great slab of classic metal that I was a fool to overlook first time around.

4/5

This is quite timely. I am hosting a series of builders on RYM for yearly lists of metal and hard rock albums. We began with 1976 (as someone else had previously covered 1970-75) and have just started on 1983. During these builders, which take around three weeks each to complete, I have been listening to another ten to fifteen albums I haven't previously rated from each year. So, I will post my current top ten from 1983 and then at the end of the current builder I'll see if there has been any movement on my top ten after listening to more albums from that year. 

It also seems, from the number of suggestions coming in, that 1983 was the big break-out year for metal.

My initial top ten:

1.  Slayer - "Show No Mercy"

2. Iron Maiden - "Piece Of Mind"

3. Mercyful Fate - "Melissa"

4. Metallica - "Kill 'Em All"

5. Satan - "Court in the Act"

6. Dio - "Holy Diver"

7. Raven - "All For One"

8. Acid - "Maniac"

9. Ritual - "Widow"

10. Black Sabbath - "Born Again"

Try Solstice's New Dark Age if you've never heard it Morpheus as that is guitarist Rich Walker's main band and, although more epic doom than Isen Torr, they have a lot in common.

Tribunal - The Weight of Remembrance (2023)

The Weight of Remembrance is the debut from Canadian gothic doom duo, Tribunal, who consist of vocalist/guitarist Etienne Flinn and vocalist/bassist/cellist Soren Mourne. I would classify this as a gothic metal album with a marked doom metal presence rather than an out and out doom metal album. The duo employ a dual female/male vocal dynamic, but rather than the female vocals providing an ethereal, angelic counterpoint to the harsh male vocals, Soren Mourne's singing is more powerful than that, not adhering to the overdone beauty and the beast vocal cliche and are one of the album's plus points. Unfortunately her blackened harsh vocals are nowhere near as successful as her cleans and the deathly growls of the male vocals isn't very impressive either.

Musically, there are plenty of doomy riffs, however none of them are especially great - they aren't bad, but they do feel a bit tired at times. The duo use drummer Julia Geaman in a live setting and indeed she is behind the kit here, but sadly the drum sound feels quite pedestrian and doesn't do her any favours at all. The cello adds a nice atmospheric touch occasionally, especially on my favourite track, Apathy's Keep, but generally it isn't really that much to write home about. The production seems a bit sparse for an album aiming for a gothic atmosphere, which really requires a more lush sound and, as such, contributes to the album's failings.

I feel like I have been overly harsh about The Weight of Remembrance, but I have listened to a lot of this sort of stuff over the years and even though this is perfectly servicable doom-laden gothic metal, containing all the requisite ingredients, it doesn't do anything particularly impressive or adventurous with them and fails to poke it's head far above the parapet of mediocrity for the most part - those clean female vocals apart.

3/5

I find this breakout of my ratings to be quite interesting too:

5 star             1.9%

4.5 star         11.3%

4 star             26.8%

3.5 star          30.6%

3 star             18.2%

2.5 star           7.7%

2 star              3.3%

1.5 star           1.5%

1 star               0.5%

0.5 star            0.2%

I'm comfortable with that spread to be honest. It shows that I save the 5/5 ratings for the elite of the elite & it also shows that I don't consciously go looking for music that's clearly not gonna fall anywhere near my wheelhouse all that often either.

Although I have only 93 releases that I have at 5 stars that still seems too high for me and so I am slowly revisiting these - I suppose 93 albums over 35 years of listening to metal isn't that high but I think there are one or two that probably got overrated.

I'm with you there Vinny, I have 120+ five star albums and that seems a lot, although when I have revisited them I find it very hard to downgrade them because, yes they do sound that good.

I find this breakout of my ratings to be quite interesting too:

5 star             1.9%

4.5 star         11.3%

4 star             26.8%

3.5 star          30.6%

3 star             18.2%

2.5 star           7.7%

2 star              3.3%

1.5 star           1.5%

1 star               0.5%

0.5 star            0.2%

I'm comfortable with that spread to be honest. It shows that I save the 5/5 ratings for the elite of the elite & it also shows that I don't consciously go looking for music that's clearly not gonna fall anywhere near my wheelhouse all that often either.

This is also something I have been pondering lately. Your rating spread looks very similar to my own Daniel, with 4 and 3.5 star ratings dominating. What I have been wondering is if maybe I should have a different rating scheme for a specialist website like Metal Academy where I am more predisposed to enjoying the material as opposed to a general site like RYM.

What I mean is that on an absolute scale where 0.5 is the shittest stuff going, on RYM that would mean the worst of novelty records or Justin Bieber, but here even the worst albums can't be that bad. I find with my ratings here a 3.5 is not bad, but isn't really one I would return to that much (same as I do on RYM) but I kind of feel that descriprion should merit a lower score here. My four star ratings mean a good album I would gladly return to again but this encompasses a huge swathe of albums and I tend to find that becomes my default, so a bit more precision around these ratings would be nice.

Trouble is I can't face re-rating almost 3000 albums, so it's kind of a moot point, although I may move this way going forward and lower scores from 4 stars down.

My rating breakdown:

5.0 - 4.1%

4.5 - 11.7%

4.0 - 38.0%

3.5 - 27.1%

3.0 - 11.9%

2.5 - 4.0%

2.0 - 1.6%

1.5 - 0.8%

1.0 - 0.5%

0.5 - 0.3%

Sorry for such excessive nerdishness, but I do have a lot of time on my hands now and the arbitrary assigning of a numerical value to multifarious pieces of art has become an abiding passion of mine!

Unfortunately not Sonny. It's a real shame because I'd suggest that that stuff was amongst the material I'm most proud of as a composer.

Damn, that is a shame. As a devout death doom fanatic I would really like to have heard it.

I completely agree with your assessment here Sonny. "The Cage" is simply a hard rock record as far as I can see & not a very good one either it has to be said. It should never have been drawn in under the NWOBHM banner in the first place in my opinion.

This nomination has been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

No it isn't a very good record at all. I really dislike AOR and this has all the hallmarks of that excremental genre. In fact, thinking about it again has pissed me off so much I have had to go back and dock it another half a point!

Thanks Daniel for sharing that. Did any of the material you wrote for Elysium see light of day because I would be really interested in hearing that?

I am not going to be writing a review of this album as there is one simple yet (for me) glaring issue which I am sure is only something I will have a challenge with and it would just look dumb in an actual review.  I get the musicianship and the quality of the performance on show here.  These guys are a talented bunch, that much is obvious.  What I cannot get past on this record is that bird song sample that is on every track.  I get that it is part of the aesthetic but it is so irritating.  It is the exact same sample that my wife has on her alarm so hearing the sound that wakes me up each morning and heralds the start of the working day is not something I want to hear on an album.  Bizarre I know, but that's my take on this one. 

I have found that if  I listen to it whilst out walking then I don't notice the birdsong samples as there are always birds singing in the background anyway and I've got used to them by now.

Some of you may recall me mentioning that a record label called Sphere of Apparition was interested in mastering & re-releasing the two mid-1990's demo tapes from my old brutal death metal band Neuropath. Well, things have been progressing nicely since I last provided an update. The mastering has been completed & both tapes sound as good as it's possible to get them. The CD cover layout is almost finalized. Options for the front cover artwork are being explored at the moment too. I'd guess that the final release date will be some time in the middle of the year depending on how quickly we can get the cover art signed off. It'll be starting in a CD only format but there's potential to expand on that depending on demand. There may be t-shirts too. It's very exciting stuff for an ol' metalhead like myself.

Sounds super-exciting Daniel. If you don't mind me asking, did you continue with playing in bands after Neuropath split or did the experience deter you from further involvement in a band environment? I am just curious but, of course, if you would rather not go into it then that's fine.

Hi Ben, could you add Black Oath's 2022 album, Emeth Truth and Death please.

Ben, I am intending starting working on the playlist for April tomorrow, so if you have any suggestions could you get them to me sometime today please.

If you haven't anything then that's fine too.

I'll take the Fog of War album. An album with a cover that bad has got to be great, right guys? ....guys?

Over to you Vinny.

I still can't believe you first picked this. 

I must admit that I'm hoping you manage to get to it (totally fine if you don't though!). Call me intrigued.

And so shall it be:

Fog of War - Fog of War (2009)

Let's get one thing out of the way, this is nowhere near as terrible as that terrible cover art would have you think and let's face it, that is one of the most amateurish album covers you are ever likely to encounter, luckily the music is not. Released in 2009, Fog of War is a product of the thrash revival movement of the 2000's and, to be honest, is a pretty decent effort when compared to some. It is unpretentious and energetic with solid thrashin' riffs and a respectable level of competency.

The production has a good clarity and all the instruments shine through, although there are a couple of tracks where the snare starts to grate a little, Death Penalty being the most obvious - no it's not St. Anger levels of intrusiveness, but just enough to set off an alarm. The vocals are functional, singer and rhythm guitarist Josh "Mosh" Branum's singing sits in the punk-derived crossover spectrum of thrash metal vocalists. But where Fog of War scores well is in the guitar work, both rhythm and lead. The riffs are great for any would-be moshpit warrior to abuse their body to and the lead work is actually really good. There are some brilliantly incendiary solos which come fairly thick and fast - check out Enforcer for a terrific fretboard workout - and these elevate the album from a fairly mundane, by-the-numbers product of the thrash revival conveyor belt to something that actually stands out from the crowd and makes me want to return to it again. Sure, as things proceed you start to notice a bit of filler, but tracks like the opening title track, the aforementioned Enforcer and Blood of A Thousand Suns should awaken the beast in any red-blooded thrasher and see them launching themselves around the room in a metal-induced frenzy (in spirit at least, if not in actual body - come on, I'm over sixty now!)

They really should do something about that fucking cover though!

I did toy with giving this a 4/5 rating, but played it safe in the end and went with 3.5./5

Dismember - Like An Everflowing Stream (1991)

A while back, in connection with a review for Carnage's Dark Recollections I asked if anyone could enlighten me on the "swedish death metal sound" which both Daniel and Ben kindly did. So fast forward just over a year from that release and Carnage were no more, with three of the members now in the lineup of Dismember and the band releasing their debut full-length, Like an Ever Flowing Stream. Well, I gotta say, Like an Ever Flowing Stream certainly illustrates that swedish sound better than any release I have heard previously. The distortion on the guitars is cranked up to a ridiculous level and it certainly imparts a wall-of-sound effect to the riffing, but I've got to say, I'm not completely at home with it. It sounds too overdriven to me and gives the album the effect of the various components working against each other rather than together. The vocals seem to be fighting for dominance over the all-encompassing guitar and the poor old rhythm section are pretty much on a hiding to nothing, although Fred Estby does a valiant job behind the kit and is one of the album's winners. Whereas with Carnage that sound produced a down 'n' dirty effect, here it's more of an eardrum-bursting fight for sonic supremacy and the often quite shred-like solos just seem to add more fuel to the fire. Matti Kärki's vocals are great, very gruff and gravelly and, along with Estby's drumming, are the highlights of the album for me.

It is very rarely that I would utter these words in respect to extreme metal, but I really wish that Dismember had dialled it back a bit on Like an Ever Flowing Stream because underneath all that aural blitzkrieg is a decent album. There are some terrific riffs, but they are just buried under so much distortion that I personally found it a distraction. I guess I am more drawn to the Floridian sound as it feels less artificial and has a more earthy, atmospheric aspect to it than this out and out blitzkrieg approach.

3/5

Canadians Razor are one of those second-tier thrash metal bands who don't get a huge amount of credit due to the fact that their version of thrash metal is seen as derivative and unevolving. But, despite this, there are plenty of real thrash fans who can hear their quality and who can see their lack of evolution as a mark of consistency. How many boss-level thrash acts failed miserably when trying to evolve their sound and consequently became followers instead of leaders anyway? 

Well, I digress. Razor played a particularly fast and aggressive version of speed-infused thrash metal and produced some of the best purely visceral albums of the eighties, their output being heaven for the headbanging hordes and a boon for 21st century chiropractors! From the very beginning they went on the offensive, releasing two albums in '85, Executioner's Song and Evil Invaders, both of which were terrific and then went on to release an album each year until reaching their peak in '88 with Violent Restitution, the subject of this here review and, spoiler alert, my favourite of theirs.

The cover of Violent Restitution shows a bloodied, turbo-charged chainsaw and is as good a metaphor for the album's contents as any amount of words could convey. The album kicks off with a breakneck instrumental, The Marshall Plan, that itself opens up with a lung-busting, sustained scream from singer Stace "Sheepdog" McLaren (for whom this was the last outing with the band who would be much reduced by his departure) that could rival Tom Araya's intro to Angel of Death. Following that are thirteen tracks of thrash metal blitzkrieg with all but three of the songs weighing in at under three minutes. Razor aren't aiming for subtlety or much variety here, this is just fast and furious Fuck You thrash metal that makes no excuses and no apologies with riffs that are more infectious than covid and a relentless battery of thrashbeats. When he's not emitting marrow-freezing screams, "Sheepdog"'s vocals sound like he gargles rusty nails each morning and all that is topped off with some brilliant shredding solos. 

Occasionally the band slip down a gear with a more groove-laden riff, even slipping into Venom-like speed riffs a couple of times, but in the main this is all hi-octane stuff. Yes, it is absolutely true that there is nothing new or original here, but this is just so vicious, infectious and fucking METAL, how could any true, red-blooded thrasher not love it? I never saw Razor live, but I can imagine the pit at their shows being fucking brutal. Balls-out and uncompromising - vital ingredients for great thrash metal.

4.5/5

I have always found it easier to enjoy Slipknot in small doses. I wasn't much for the S/T when it came out and still prefer the following two albums, although I wouldn't exactly call either favourites - except for Vermilion parts one and two which are probably my most favoured tracks from the altenative / nu-metal scene. From what I've seen on YouTube they did put on a hell of a show though, so perhaps that is why they were so huge.

Yes, Vinny. My suggestions are:

Anthrax – “The Enemy” from “Spreading The Disease” (1985) 

Cryptosis – “Prospect of Immortality” from “Bionic Swarm” (2021) 

Blood Tsunami – “Nothing but Contempt” from “Grand Feast for Vultures” (2009) 

Fog of War - "Death Penalty" from "Fog of War" (2009)

I was just thinking that this is something that’s gonna start happening more & more often now given that metal is now more than half a decade old & most of the classic exponents are reaching a reasonable vintage.

...and one of life's fundamental lessons is learnt!

I've just noticed that you have added Deep Purple's discography to the site, Ben. Does this signal a change in site policy, or have I missed a conversation somewhere?

Crawl - Damned (2023)

Released 3rd February by Profound Lore

I stumbled across Crawl and their third full-length whilst compiling the Fallen playlist and was pretty damn impressed by what I heard. Crawl is apparently the work of a single individual, Michael A. Engle who doesn't just record all the instruments separately, but performs bass, drums, vocals and samples simultaneously, both live and in a studio setting for a genuine one-man band experience. Damned was recorded by Hell mainman MSW twiddling the knobs and it is easy to see why he was drawn to working with Crawl as the latter has the same bleak, nihilistic vibe going on as Hell.

Musically, Damned is a mix of drone metal, black ambient and a sludgy kind of doom metal that spans four tracks with a total 37 minutes runtime. Opener, Renaissance Of Worthlessness, acts as an intro with a droning bass sound and a black ambient soundscape that conjures images of some godsforsaken charnel house setting with water running down the walls and blood pooling on the floor and where unspeakable acts of cruelty occur. After this six minutes of unsettling ambience we get into the meat of matters, ...This Lesser Form comes oozing out of the speakers with droning, heavily distorted guitar and langorous piano chords combined with chant-like samples over which Engle shrieks his fury like a banshee howling into a gale, a desperate voice facing off against an implacable force. The atmosphere produced by Crawl is one of utter darkness, very similar to the effect that MSW himself often achieves under his Hell monicker and even though the music is quite sparsely produced, it still feels impenetrably dense and crushing.

10,000 Polehammers follows a similar template, but feels even more dense than the preceeding track, the drums here being pushed quite far forward and taking a prominent position in the mix, each snare hit seemingly increasing the protagonist's suffering as he wails and howls his protestations impotently into the darkness. The cover of Damned is a black and white drawing of a medieval knight, seemingly defeated and broken down by the horrors he has witnessed rather than the enemies he has defeated and, I must admit, that is a perfect metaphor for the sound of the closing track, Poisoned and Shadowmad which is as bleak a piece of metal as you are likely to hear this year.

Damned is filthy-sounding, impenetrable, unremittingly bleak and a pretty damn great illustration of what extreme doom drone should sound like.

(Exceedingly strong) 4/5

Isen Torr are a side project of Solstice mainman Rich Walker and the Mighty & Superior EP is, sadly, their only release to date. Unsurprisingly, they still carry a lot of Solstice's DNA and with Walker's guitar work having a distinctive sound it would be hard to distance themselves too much from the doomier outfit without a complete change of musical style. The two tracks on here, Mighty & Superior and The Theomachist were actually written for Solstice's follow up to the imperious New Dark Age album, but Solstice were inactive at the time so Walker started Isen Torr with the intention of releasing three EPs, but the other two never materialised and Walker disbanded the outfit after the death of vocalist Tony Taylor in a motorcycle accident in 2010.

These two tracks of epic heavy metal are really just Solstice material with a faster, Iron Maiden-esque galloping tempo and more expansive lead work. The lyrics mine the same seam as Solstice, with reference to Dark Age, Anglo-Saxon England and it's warriors and battles. Tony Taylor, who was vocalist with Twisted Tower Dire until 2006, puts in a fine performance in front of the mike with his power metal style suiting the material very well. Walker pretty much lets himself go with a couple of killer riffs and solos being wielded like a sharpened battle axe blade, left, right and centre. There is more similarity with the material on 2018's Solstice full-length, White Horse Hill, than the preceding album and as such, Mighty & Superior serves as a pointer to where Walker wanted to take his music going forward.

If you like to revel in the sometimes OTT nature of heavy metal and it's larger-than-life expression of power and glory then these two tracks are a great pointer to the potential of a sadly curtailed outfit who dealt in that OTT currency without ever sounding overly cheesy, but stayed just the right side of the line whilst most definitely "playing on ten".

(Strong)4/5

Zarathustra - In Hora Mortis (2006)

Zarathustra are unfamiliar to me and, judging by the lack of a single rating for any of their albums, to everyone else here on Metal Academy. Well, they are a German black metal band who formed in 1996, releasing three albums between 2000 and 2006, In Hora Mortis being the last one to date. The band still officially exist, albeit having been on hold for a while and drummer Mersus, who was skinsman for Deströyer 666 for a decade, is the only original member still in the band.

My first playthrough was whilst out dog-walking during an early spring snow flurry and In Hora Mortis made for a very apt companion on that trip as it has a frostbitten edge to it that was very much enhanced by the billowing white stuff falling from those Northern Skies. Zarathustra play quite fundamental second-wave black metal and fans of bands like Immortal should feel right at home with In Hora Mortis. Most of the tracks are medium paced with occasional blasting sections, similarly to Immortal, and they have enough melody to them to make each track memorable in it's own right and to stop the album sounding samey and forgettable. Producing actual "songs" seems to have gone out of fashion a bit in black metal circles, but rather, a huge amount of bands strive to produce "pieces" that lean heavily on dissonance and avant-garde stylings, Zarathustra, however, most definitely do not fall into that category, they still understand the benefits of a well-crafted song that can be recalled after the disc has finished playing and that makes the listener want to bang their head and pummell the air with their fists! They have crafted some fine black metal riffs here with some tasty lead work, the rhythm section is strong, Mersus providing a decent approximation of an artillery battery on overdrive with his skinwork. Vocalist Hurricane (Dennis Freiberger) has an abrasive harsh bark that suits the tracks very well and sounds suitably evil whilst still being clear enough to understand the lyrics. All the songs are strong, but there is a brace of tracks in the middle of the album, Salvation from Being and Crown of Creation that could blow the balls off a charging mammoth at forty paces!

I guess In Hora Mortis is one of those albums that often gets short shrift from a large percentage of metalheads simply for geing "generic", despite the fact that this is actually a very good slab of no-frills early second-wave worship. Personally I am very happy to have crossed path with this terrific chunk of horns-in-the-air, unpretentious black metal goodness and once more the review draft seems to have come up trumps for me. I will definitely be looking into these guys further.

(Strong)4/5

Nocturnus - The Key (1990)

I heard this ages ago and wasn't terribly impressed, only affording it a measly three out of five, however I have come quite a long way in my exposure to and appreciation of death metal in the meantime, so a reappraisal is probably long overdue. First off, this is nothing like as technical as I remember it being and that, for me, is a big plus as I am not especially fond of technical death metal (or thrash metal for that matter). In fact, despite the fact that there is a lot of frenetic fretwork during the solos on The Key, I am not even sure this counts as technical death metal, or at least not by modern standards. One thing for certain though is that Nocturnus cannot be accused of producing an album that is a clone of other popular releases from the time, the numerous guitar solos and the inclusion of keyboards on a death metal album was certainly not de rigeur for the day.

The foundation of the album is solid, with some terrific riffs, a few of which still seem to hold a fair bit of thrash metal DNA and the rhythm section turn in a fine performance (especially listening to the FDR edition). The keyboards are an interesting addition and, unlike most other death metal bands that use them, they aren't used here for a gothic horror effect, but instead they are quite thin-sounding and reinforce the science fiction aesthetic that the band were striving for. The big draw here though has got to be the lead work of Mike Davis and Sean McNenney whose guitars howl and squeal through almost the entire runtime, it sounding like their fingers must have been an almost constant blur on their fretboards. The great thing with The Key is that the technical guitar work never interrupts the flow of the tracks, as one of my bugbears with tech-death is that the constant changes and shifts in tracks often robs them of forward impetus and leaves them floundering. Here the solos seem to add even more velocity to the tracks and gives them an increased impetus. The big letdown on The Key are Mike Browning's vocals which just don't carry the necessary evilness or strength that the better vocalists of the time achieved, being buried in the mix a bit doesn't help their cause much either and takes away a significant ingredient of top tier death metal bands of the early nineties.

So, in summation, Nocturnus but together an album that marked them apart from most of their competitors in Floridian death metal and in so doing helped lay the foundations for an offshoot genre of the still expanding death metal genre. I am not going to pretend that it has shot up to the top of my death metal appreciation list, but it is a much finer album than I gave it credit for way back when, the science fiction theme makes a nice change from the constant charnel house themes of their contemporaries and it is certainly an enjoyable enough listen.

4/5

Hexer - Abyssal (2023)

Released 17th February 2023 self-released

I have been a huge fan of Hexer going right back to the first demo in 2015 and was made up to see they were releasing a new album, three years on from 2020's Realm of the Feathered Serpent. The Germans have never been easy to pigeonhole and I think they have made it even more difficult this time around with an album that spans several genres and displays multiple influences, all whilst retaining that bassy, cavernous and hypnotic vibe they have employed since day one. Abyssal employs aspects of death, black and sludge metal then twists them together with elements of psychedelia for a hypnotic, acid-fuelled trip through an extreme metal landscape. The effect is most reminiscent of a band like Oranssi Pazuzu or, more specifically their spin-off, Waste of Space Orchestra.

There have been some big changes in the Hexer camp since the release of Realm of the Feathered Serpent with the band being reduced to a duo and guitarist / vocalist Marvin Giehr being the only remaining member from that album's lineup. The other member is new drummer Melvin Cieslar, so Abyssal is an album lacking the keyboards from RotFS, resulting in a stripped-back presentation with less thickness to the sound, particularly at the bottom end and no building of atmospheric layers. The tracks are generally quicker-paced and as there is considerably less doom metal influence, Abyssal sounds more savage and aggressive. Also gone, in the main, are any post-metal build-up and release elements that did feature from time to time on the band's previous material, thus adding to that more feral sound. I guess to some folks this all sounds like Abyssal is a lesser release than it's predecessor, but I must disagree. The songs are more focussed and immediate than the sometimes meandering nature of the tracks on RotFS and as such are, on the whole, more memorable. Whereas Realm... is an album that you can let wash over you and relax you with it's hypnotic nature, Abyssal is more of an album for on the go and firing you up.

In truth, I am not exactly sure how I would genre tag Abyssal. It features so many elements in equal part that it is difficult to definitively label, whether it be death, black, sludge or stoner metal - there is even a throbbing bassline section in opener Katarakt that could be construed as post-punk. Stoner-black... Atmo-death anyone? Fucked if I know! It is however another stand-out offering from a band who don't have any desire to follow any current trend in metal but who are following their own path and have developed a singular sound and good luck to them for that.

Very strong 4/5

I thought I would resurrect this thread to catalogue my attempt on the remainder of The Horde's Death Metal - The 1st Decade clan challenge. I'll be going through the list in chronological order so it remains in keeping with the thread's original intention of travelling through the timeline of death metal's early development. If there are any albums you feel I absolutely must hear in order to keep expanding my death metal education from 1990-94 then by all means post them here and I will check them out. I don't intend for this to be as exhaustive as it started out, as I say it is more to chart my tackling of the clan challenge, but I am not averse to a few more albums to listen to along the way.

Anyway, next up:

Obituary - Cause of Death (1990)

Obituary's debut Slowly We Rot was an exceedingly solid slab of death metal and was a decent calling card for the Floridians. However, the improvement from that album to Cause of Death is marked. With this Obituary made their most significant contribution to the development of death metal and in so doing laid down a stone-cold classic.

Cause of Death retained the things that the debut did well - John Tardy's vocals remained equally as evil-sounding and depraved and the guitar tone that dominated Slowly We Rot, derived as it so obviously is from Celtic Frost's classic sound, was honed to virtually the perfect death metal guitar sound that, for me, defined what OSDM riffs should sound like. On top of those good things from SWR, this time round Obituary upped their songwriting skills and the tracks on Cause of Death are far more memorable than those found on the debut, Body Bag and the title track, for example I find still rolling round my head long after the disc stops spinning. There aren't as many doomy, slow sections, but when the pace drops, I would say they are better done and are more effective for their sparseness. The most obvious upgrade from Slowly We Rot is the addition of transformative lead guitarist James Murphy whose contributions here, similarly to those he made on Death's Spiritual Healing from the same year, made an enormous difference, his solos being far more skillfully executed and interesting than those of his predecessor, Allen West. I don't think the improvements his involvement entailed can be underestimated as he is obviously an exceptionally gifted axeman and he managed to bring the soloing style of classic heavy metal gods like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest into the gnarly and foetid world of death metal without it sanitising the filthiness of the band's death metal sound but instead celebrating and bestowing it with a classiness it previously lacked. Drummer Donald Tardy also seemed to have upped his game and the addition of new bassist Frank Watkins solidified the rhythm section and they seem more on point with the pacier material of Cause of Death.

Once more, however, the band were determined to include a Celtic Frost cover and even though their version of Circle of the Tyrants is actually pretty awesome, it seems kind of redundant when you think that the band were one of the pioneers of a newer, more brutal style of metal, so why did they feel the need to reference back to earlier material that they had usurped and superceded? This is the only negative I can think of with regard to Cause of Death though and even that is kind of half-hearted because, as I said, the cover is actually excellent. I've not heard a lot of Obituary after this release, but consensus seems to be that they were never this good again, but to have been this good even once is an achievement not to be sniffed at.

5/5

Daniel & Vinny, thanks, your suggestions have been added to the list.

Could you add Hexer's latest, Abyssal, please Ben.

So, inspired by Vinny's assault on The Fallen, I have got my arse in gear and decided to continue my attempt to complete The Horde's Death Metal - The 1st Decade clan challenge and secure myself that coveted fourth clan (after only four years on the site!) So here we go:

Obituary - Cause of Death (1990)

Obituary's debut Slowly We Rot was an exceedingly solid slab of death metal and was a decent calling card for the Floridians. However, the improvement from that album to Cause of Death is marked. With this Obituary made their most significant contribution to the development of death metal and in so doing laid down a stone-cold classic.

Cause of Death retained the things that the debut did well - John Tardy's vocals remained equally as evil-sounding and depraved and the guitar tone that dominated Slowly We Rot, derived as it so obviously is from Celtic Frost's classic sound, was honed to virtually the perfect death metal guitar sound that, for me, defined what OSDM riffs should sound like. On top of those good things from SWR, this time round Obituary upped their songwriting skills and the tracks on Cause of Death are far more memorable than those found on the debut, Body Bag and the title track, for example I find still rolling round my head long after the disc stops spinning. There aren't as many doomy, slow sections, but when the pace drops, I would say they are better done and are more effective for their sparseness. The most obvious upgrade from Slowly We Rot is the addition of transformative lead guitarist James Murphy whose contributions here, similarly to those he made on Death's Spiritual Healing from the same year, made an enormous difference, his solos being far more skillfully executed and interesting than those of his predecessor, Allen West. I don't think the improvements his involvement entailed can be underestimated as he is obviously an exceptionally gifted axeman and he managed to bring the soloing style of classic heavy metal gods like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest into the gnarly and foetid world of death metal without it sanitising the filthiness of the band's death metal sound but instead celebrating and bestowing it with a classiness it previously lacked. Drummer Donald Tardy also seemed to have upped his game and the addition of new bassist Frank Watkins solidified the rhythm section and they seem more on point with the pacier material of Cause of Death.

Once more, however, the band were determined to include a Celtic Frost cover and even though their version of Circle of the Tyrants is actually pretty awesome, it seems kind of redundant when you think that the band were one of the pioneers of a newer, more brutal style of metal, so why did they feel the need to reference back to earlier material that they had usurped and superceded? This is the only negative I can think of with regard to Cause of Death though and even that is kind of half-hearted because, as I said, the cover is actually excellent. I've not heard a lot of Obituary after this release, but consensus seems to be that they were never this good again, but to have been this good even once is an achievement not to be sniffed at.

5/5

In common with genre trailblazers Blasphemy, Conqueror were a British Columbia war metal band, forming in 1994 and splitting in 2000. War Cult Supremacy is their only full album and was released in 1999. I know most people, including a significant number of black metal fans, don't enjoy war metal and, in all honesty I get that. However, to me, an album like War Cult Supremacy reaches back down into the brutal and bestial roots of Man and can be utilised as a kind of primal scream therapy. War metal is chaotic and thundering, it is relentlessy brutal-sounding and it is unforgiving. It speaks back to the days when men ate what they could kill and they had to kill what threatened them to survive. War metal isn't intended to speak to the modern, reasoning man in all of us, but rather to our primitive nature, red in blood and claw.

This Canadian duo have that primal primitivism down to a tee, with their chaotic blend of death and black metal that does little except pummel away relentlessly at your ears and mind with little regard for tunefullness, song structure or technical mastery. The drums batter away relentlesly in what seems like a permanent blastbeat, hugely distorted riffs fire off in all directions, guitar leads are virtually non-existent and J. Read spits out the lyrics in a flurry of incoherent fury. The production values are very low, not unusually for 1990's war metal, which adds to the chaotic nature of the album as any detail or subtlety just disappears into the tempest of speed and distortion. There are actually some good songs buried under these layers of visceral chaos and brutality, The Curse, for example is an energetic maelstrom with a throbbing central riff and the title track is a blitz of black metal bombardment that fans of late 90's Marduk would recognise easily if it was slowed down a bit and the production values were higher.

War Cult Supremacy is an album that is meant to engage the listener on a gut level, not on a cerebral one. For proof look no further than the lyrics to Chaos Domination (Conquer the Enslaver) - "Chaos domination conquers the enslaver, The new order of the Conqueror is here, The absolute laws of nature replace the deficient laws of humanity". Not that the lyrics are a big part of what War Cult Supremacy is about as they are all but indecipherable, but they do illustrate the philosophy behind the music. Even the anti-christian stuff, I think, is more about man's laws being stripped away and replaced by the chaos of war and conquest.

Some may say that I am full of shit and this is just a couple of guys who can't really play very well making a damn racket and hey, maybe you're right, but when I listen to this it sweeps away all the unconscionable bullshit I have filled my head with during the day and replaces it with a mad, chaotic joy just for being alive - and that is no mean feat my friends!

4.5/5

Kowloon Walled City - Gambling on the Richter Scale (2009)

This is an interesting slab of sludge metal that the review draft has thrown up this month. Gambling on the Richter Scale is pretty damn heavy and has a bottom end that, if played too loudly, may leave you homeless if your house isn't up to code. What it isn't though, is an indistinguishable morass of distortion-laden fuzz. Sure, it utilises distortion to great effect, but the recording is so clear that all the ingredients are sharply defined. The rhythm section of bassist Ian Miller and drummer Jeff Fagundes particularly benefit from this aspect of the production. The bass shines through and even dominates proceedings at times, providing a super-solid foundation for the guitar riffs to be built on. The drumwork is brilliant, being perfectly positioned in the mix and with plenty of interesting fills, Fagundes especially shining on Bone Loss where the more complex drumming patterns contrast really effectively with the quite basic riffing. The guitar work is essentially quite straitforward, but the riffs are as thick as you would hope for and being bolstered by the bass, they are ridiculously heavy. There isn't a huge amount of lead work, but what there is is handled well and layered over the heaviness of the riffing it hits like razorblades set in concrete.

Guitarist Scott Evans also handles vocal duties and has a decent hardcore punk bawl that sounds more derived from the NYHC scene than San Francisco. Lyrically this is as bleak and unflinching as anything by Eyehategod or other sludge legends - Diabetic Feet for example speaks of living with amputation due to ignorance of the effects of treatable disease and several other tracks deal with the erosion of self due and daily grind caused by poverty and endless back-breaking and soul-destroying labour. There is no hope or redemption to be found anywhere within Kowloon Walled City's lyrics as they are desperately try to force you to blink or look away.

In summation, this is actually a bit of a hidden gem of the sludge world and deserves more recognition than it has so far received. KWC have released an additional three albums to date and I am looking forward to checking them out - another win for the review draft!

(A very strong) 4/5

The easy answer would be Bathory, but I am going to take the Zarathustra album as I have never heard of them before.

Over to you, Vinny.

Brilliant, I love this record and have it on CD. It is a Rich Walker side project of Solstice with Twisted Tower Dire's Tony Taylor on vocals, so it is EPIC, as you would expect. I've never written up a review so cheers for nominating it, Daniel and motivating me to do so!

I'll try my luck with Steak Number Eight, despite the stupid name.

Not fancy Phyllomedusa after spending all that time adding them, Ben?

I'll take the Fog of War album. An album with a cover that bad has got to be great, right guys? ....guys?

Over to you Vinny.

I will take the Kowloon Walled City album, Ben.

Way to go Andi. It seems like you have enjoyed a lot of classic thrash a bit more than you thought you would - certainly more than I thought you would!

March 2023

1. Black Oath - "Behold the Abyss" from "Behold the Abyss" (2018) [suggested by Sonny]

2. Eyehategod - "My Name Is God (I Hate You)" from "Dopesick (1996) [suggested by Sonny]

3. Ufomammut - "Ammonia" from "Idolum" (2008) [suggested by Ben]

4. Death SS - "Chains of Death - 1982" from "The Story of Death SS : 1977-1984" (1987) [suggested by Daniel]

5. Monolord - "Larvae" from "No Comfort" (2019) [suggested by Vinny]

6. Tribulation - "In Remembrance" from "Where the Gloom Becomes Sound" (2021)

7. Oozing Wound - "Total Existence Anxiety" from "We Cater to Cowards" (2023)

8. Black Lodge - "Dissonance" from "Covet" (1995)

9. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - "Big Rig" from "Land of Sleeper" (2023)

10. Chat Pile - "Slaughterhouse" from "God's Country" (2022) [suggested by Daniel]

11. Crawl - "Poisoned and Shadowmad" from "Damned" (2023)

12. Inter Arma - "'sblood" from "Sky Burial" (2013)

13. Electric Wizard - "Funeralopolis" from "Dopethrone" (2000)

14. The Otolith - "Ekpyrotic" from "Folium Limina" (2022) [suggested by Daniel]

15. Colosseum - "Passage to Eternity" from "Chapter 3: Parasomnia" (2011) [suggested by Ben]

Holy Moses - Master of Disaster (2001)

I was quite familiar with the Germans' first two full-lengths, but didn't follow their career any further than that. There was a massive upturn in quality from the debut, Queen of Siam to the sophomore, so I was interested to hear what trajectory their career had taken from the latter's release in 1987 to this in 2001. Master of Disaster is a five-track EP and clocks in at seventeen minutes, it consists of fairly savage crossover-ish thrash that isn't actually too far removed from what we heard on Finished With the Dogs. However, it doesn't possess the '87 full-length's rawness and so lacks a lot of the charisma that album manages to exude. Singer Sabina has a harsh, ragged line in punk-ish shrieking vocals that here sound much more forced and overdone than they did on FWtD and so are diminished to my ears - I don't know whether the emergence of others like Angela Gossow affected her vocal delivery, but it just seems like she is trying too hard. The riffs are meaty and musically the band sound very tight, but very little actually stands out and grabs you. It's not bad and at 17 minutes it doesn't last long enough to irritate, but I was kind of hoping that the decade and a half since Finished With the Dogs might have produced something more impressive.

3/5

I went through my first The Fallen playlist this month.  My takeaway picks were The Hounds of Hasselvander, Fvneral Fvck, Mansion, Ahab and The Howling Void.  I didn't mind Admiral Angry either but I have never understood the hype around Orange Goblin and this tack didn't change my mind either.  Some cool takeaways to explore in more detail though.  Thanks Sonny.

It's great that you enjoyed Mansion, Ahab and Howling Void Vinny as they are 2023 releases and it feels like The Fallen may be in for a good year new music-wise. Fvneral Fvck were a new one on me too that I discovered while compiling the list and really dug a lot.

Well, it was going really well up to Overkill's The One, but after that it went a bit Pete Tong for me. I'm not a big fan of groove metal and most things that sound like Pantera get up my nose, so there were a few tracks in the middle section that didn't do it for me - Lazarus A.D., Mnemic and, unsurprisingly, Babymetal didn't impress (although I resisted the temptation to FF which was quite an effort with a couple of them). Zimmers Hole's “When You Were Shouting at the Devil…We Were in League with Satan” did make me raise a chuckle though and is an absolutely brilliant title.

Things got back on track with Autoneosis and although I wasn't a massive fan of the album, here on the playlist it works. The one-two punch of Deviated Instinct and Hellshock was a playlist highlight for me and though I wasn't massively taken with the Feared track, the three closers gave the playlist a terrific, powerful climax.

I must admit, I'm starting to wonder of The Pit still holds the attraction for me that it used to. However, I just can't imagine giving up the clan that holds Reign In Blood, Master of Puppets, Among the Living and so many other albums that were fundamental to the expansion of my metal taste in the eighties. Just have to take the rough with the smooth I suppose. Anyway, great work Vinny and I did hear some stuff I need to look into further - Slaughter Messiah and Hellshock in particular.

Well, The Ending Quest must be a specially kept secret of the death metal cognoscenti, because this sole full-length from Sweden's Gorement is an absolute classic of nineties death doom and it's various ingredients are like sonic vitamins that ensure the listener's mind and ears will grow strong enough to withstand the onslaught of extreme metal, yet I have never even heard of it before which is a shame because this is most definitely up my particular strasse and I am super-stoked to finally have made it's acquaintance, so thanks Daniel for nominating it. On reflection it is unfortunate that I dropped out of metal circles in the nineties because there was no end of underground-ish shit coming out that I would have lapped up if life had been a little kinder and this is absolutely one of those. It is an absolutely filthy-sounding record with some authentic sloppiness to the playing that reminds us we are listening to human beings and not machines which I always find far more endearing than absolute precision.

I agree that this feels more like a genuine death doom hybrid rather than a "death metal album with slow bits" from the likes of Autopsy and early Asphyx, rather it is more of a "death doom album with fast bits". They successfully combine the brutality of that Autopsy-like death metal with some really quite catchy doom-like melodies, but the primitive production never makes it actually feel that catchy, until you find yourself humming along to it that is!

Vocalist Jimmy Karlsson has a great line in sounding like an extremely irritated abyssal demon and the riffs are absolutely dripping with effluvium which is precisely the flavour I love in death doom metal and I will take it over that poncy, gothic-flavoured stuff any day. I joke of course and, in fact, there are times when this feels heavily influenced by Paradise Lost, such as on the excellent (but possibly too short) Silent Hymn (For the Dead). I know I am no death metal (or musical) expert and the genre has thrown out loads of precision-driven and technical masterpieces and I enjoy many of them, but this filthier, more primitive-sounding version of death metal is where I feel most comfortable and which fulfills something inside me that the more modern stuff doesn't touch.

Now I need to get my hands on one of those re-release copies. [Edit] Yay, Amazon have got if for £15, so should be arriving tomorrow!

4.5/5

I will go with just one addition please Sonny (thanks again for letting me get in on the action this month).  I will go with:

Monolord - "Larvae" (from "No Comfort", 2019)

No problem Vinny. It will be added.

I would suggest that we reduce our limit for The Fallen track nominations to 24 minutes each from next month Sonny.

Agreed. Let us go with that then going forward.

Svartidauði's is a name I have seen banded about occasionally, yet I haven't taken the plunge with them before, so other than the fact that they are Icelandic and the preconceptions that come with that, then I didn't really know what to expect. Well, for a quick summation, Revelations of the Red Sword takes the best of Deathspell Omega and Blut aus Nord and forge them into an energetic and invigorating black metal maelstrom. It has the edge that dissonance provides, yet it doesn't alienate a more conservative listener like myself by being overbearingly so, but rather it weaves a jagged wall of sound from the disparate threads of dissonance around the framework provided by the pummelling drum battery. And those drums are something to behold - Magnús Skúlason deserves much praise indeed for his constantly shifting, complex and technically superb skinwork that underpins the entire endeavour.

Further praise must go to vocalist/bassist Sturla Viðar Jakobsson whose basswork is great, but his vocals are even more so, sounding more like the howling roar of a wounded beast than the piercing shrieks more usually associated with black metal. The lead guitar work sounds exceedingly complicated and really does feel like guitarist Þórir Garðarsson is weaving disparate strands of sound from the ether and  providing a direct line of communication through to another dimension of reality.

I have found myself becoming irritated at times over recent years by the seemingly endless flow of black metal albums trading in dissonance, but what has come to me like the revelation of the title whilst listening to Revelations of the Red Sword is that what is really annoying me is that too many bands are treading the dissonance path without the necessary skill to do it effectively and so just sound, well, a bit shit. Svartidauði, however are the real deal and this is one killer of a black metal album and many thanks to Vinny for nominating it for this month's feature.

4.5/5