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I'm glad I'm finally on this Avenged Sevenfold kick.  I've put them off for years out of lack of interest for metalcore and alternative metal.  I was extremely eager to see where the band's mutation would take them, putting their crappy debut on exactly the same level (and directly above on my list of all albums I've heard ranked from best to worst) as The Unspoken King by Cryptopsy, and having been fairly satisfied with the increase in melodic and emotional focus on the second.  But now comes the monster of metal: City of Evil, one of the most controversially diverse albums in both genre-bending and online ratings.

The album kicks off with their iconic song, Beast and the Harlot.  I heard this song a couple times years ago out of curiosity, but I wasn't inspired to go into the whole album yet despite liking it.  But I had VERY little recollection of it, so the Judas Priest shift into thrashy power metal territory took me a little by surprise.  One guy on RYM said it sounds like something you'd hear from the Sonic 2 soundtrack.  Now I've played enough Sonic games to know what that means (not Sonic 2, though), but this is NOT Crush 40 here.  I'd rather sing along with "Her plagues will come all at once as her mourners watch her burn" than "I can feel your every rage, step aside I'll turn the page."  The difference here is THIS SONG IS NOT THROWN TOGETHER.  Although, the shift between thrashy metal and Helloween melodies feels a little out of place sometimes, despite being a lot of fun.

That was just for the first song.  Next is Burn It Down, which is more F-Zero-rooted than Sonic-rooted, and the thrash factor is pretty high.  You can tell these guys are Metallica fans, but it feels more like influence than straight out copying.  The melodic factor works beautifully with the singer's melodic vocals despite the high thrash factor.  It looks like they finally found the balance between melody and energy that they struggled with on the debut and improved on with Waking the Fallen.

There's a metalcore drum kick that starts Blinded in Chains.  Like a few songs from WtF (oh), it combines elements of melodic metalcore with power metal, but this was easily the best metalcore effort I had heard.  There's obvious vocal overlapping in the production, but the experience it creates is purely badass and never lets go of the melodic touches.  In fact, this song boasts some of their best melodies.  The song also has an out-of-whack and creepy fade-out segment which lasts about a minute and a half, but does a great job with the dramatic flair without ever overdoing it.  I guess this is another favorite AVS song of mine.  But no matter how hard I tried, I didn't get the Samson reference I was expected because of that obvious title.  Huh.

"He who makes a beast out of himself..."Here it comes, their potential magnum opus.  Melodically their best song so far, does an excellent job shifting from energetic metal to slow ballady alt-rock like it's nothing, and does an excellent job bringing standard hardcore punk into the alt-metal world.  On top of that, it's got an incredibly catchy guitar riff.  Even if it's not a very extreme one, it's an empowering one.  I've gotten aching arms and fingers doing air guitar to this.  Probably the best thing that ever came out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the movie was already good.

Trashed and Scattered blasted me into the "powercore" of the last album, but it wasn't so jarring as the shift between ballads and almost-deathcore like on WtF.  It felt so natural because the previous songs set a standard of diversity and aura that feels difficult to break.  Once again we get some extremely catchy rhythms.  Or maybe it's just me because I'm a power metal sucker, and I've been waiting for a band to really pull of the combination of metalcore and power metal.  This is what I expect.

Next, Seize the Day... OK, maybe I should've expected this, but a piano-rooted alt-rock ballad threw me off.  It didn't fuck with the vibe or anything, but it was a really pleasant surprise.  There's an easy comparison many have made to GNR, which may detract from the originality of the song itself, but at least it's a totally different singer.  Anyway, it's pretty cute and it's a welcome addition.  I think the vocal melodies outshine the instrumentation, though.

Sidewinder is next.  Here we have another energetic ballad that steers into some fairly progressive melodic territory.  It hits all the right notes for a proper alchemical reaction, balancing the rhythms, moods and hard rock / heavy metal vibes. The song goes on with this surprisingly soothing energy for two-thirds of the song before kicking into a Latin rock solo, never breaking the vibes.  That's pretty smart of them.  Not really overlong for seven minutes.

There's a welcome return to racecar metalcore and thrash metal with The Wicked End, featuring a wonkier lead riff with a little bit of djent attached.  But the song slowly mutates overtime, playing with varying levels of energy before somehow naturally working its way into a slow, symphonic chorus during the middle section and helping to overlap the third act until it kicks back into the thrash.  Is this the band's Stairway to Heaven?  Or is it just lacking focus?  No.  No way it's lacking focus.  It felt natural, and that's what makes it work.  The entire first album was loaded with metalcore tropes that didn't work together, so I'm going to approve this song and anyone can fight me on that if they want.  I'm a bit surprised this isn't the closer.  Maybe the album would be fine if it ended here, but I was gonna give the other three tracks a go and finish the album anyway.

The perfect way to start a song after that ambitious monster is with a slow pairing of acoustic guitar and violins recreating the wild west.  This is the beginning of Strength of the World.  Alright, after everything I've heard, I'll give them a spaghetti western beginning.  What does anyone have to lose?  It's not fucking with the flow.  After the minute-and-twenty-second intro, we get back into the electric guitars and build up into a thrash riff and goes into a fairly heavy and meaningful song that doesn't try very hard to go into more drama and relies on high-pitched guitars and the singer's voice to do all the work.  Personally, I think for nine minutes this should've had more focus, but it's not bad.  Besides, the song does mix it up again by bringing back the acoustic guitars and going into western ballad territory, and eventually into energetic riffs again and finally a cinematic violin outro.  It's another ambitious track, but it doesn't really have the same oomph or balance as The Wicked End.

The second-to-last track is Betrayed, and I feel like this one's a little melodically challenged.  The riffs and verses feel a little wonky and don't flow very well.  It's obvious they were trying a little too hard with this song, and that it was basically filler for a seventy-minute album.  Bad move, really.

This monolith ends with M.I.A.  It begins how I expect, with a softer intro before forcing itself back into energetic territory.  Thankfully, the band chose the right genre to go back to: metalcore, their roots.  But this time, the melodies work and the unpredictability is balanced. I mean, the melodies aren't amazing, but they drive this eight minute song from beginning to end and never loses its grip.

Alright, I'm extremely happy to say that I've given their iconic third album a spin.  And now to goad half the metal community into pointing their guns at me: I ate the majority of this album up.  It may be overly ambitious, but it's good to see they were trying a bunch of new things, despite the fact that the overambition leads the album to be frontloaded, especially due to the shorter lengths in the first half.  They seem to have largely forsaken metalcore, but they kept the personality traits and made something pretty fun.  This album might not always have the best songs, but it fits all of my standards for a good album.  The biggest reason I liked this album is that it handles genres and melodies exactly how I would if I were in a metal band (although I'd be heavier, and less reliant on epics).  Overall, great album by a band finding their ground, even if they have some toning down to do.

OK, nobody liked the Avenged Sevenfold debut album, and neither did I.  They say this one's pretty good for the fans, though, so I've got big hopes for this.  Finally getting around to these guys, I'm eagerly awaiting the moment I get to turn on City of Evil for the first time, but I don't want to do that until I get a really good idea of how the band evolved within the first three albums.

Like the first album, this starts out with a decent intro which gets up right into the darker vibes the band is going for.  Unholy Confessions felt dull, under-produced and dreary in its tropes.  It pains me that it became a music video.  But I found that Chapter Four was much more packed, keeping a consistent melodic vibe with its overlapping vocals and slight Gothic touch, and even had a lead riff vaguely reminiscent of the energy of my favorite franchise to compare metal songs to: F-Zero.  There's definitely a poppier thing going on here, but that's an improvement from the chaos of the debut album.  This definitely deserved to be the lead single for this album.  Remenissions starts out with the unspoken combo that I call "powercore," a genre I would totally kickstart if I were in a metal band.  Unfortunately, this is where it becomes clear that the band is steering too close to the "similar tempos" trope that many genres fall victim to.  I wasn't expecting the Latin acoustic segment, though.  Weirdly added, but somehow nice.  Desecration Through Reverence shows a bit more focus on mood-building and justifies the existence of the shifting tropes in a single song in the follow-up to their debut.  It feels so much more natural than everything the debut features.

I didn't expect many differences out of Side B, but I was hoping.  Turns out, my hopes were satisfied even for a little while.  As soon as this slower, alternative metalcore album with a deeper emotional vibe ends, the album steers RIGHT INTO POWER METAL like it was nothing.  This side ends with a basic combination of the temp tricks of the last two songs, and I can't really say this decision does anything for the album.  Despite the progressive nature and melodic prowess, it's a filler song.  Radiant Eclipse is slower, more alternative and rooted in traditional metal ballad behavior while maintaining the signature edge.  This six minute track really was a breath of fresh air that, unlike the pop rock track in the debut, Warmness of the Soul, which felt like a relief of fresh air from the crappy metalcore, is a perfectly fitting alternative song that completely continues the darker vibes of the album while building on previously established influences on this album to become its own thing.  Next was I Won't See You Tonight, Pt. 1.  One look at the length and I thought to myself, "What kind of song on a metalcore album like this lasts nine minutes!?"  My first thought was a fairly proggy ballad which probably builds on the gothic elements suggested by the secondary genre tag on this album's RYM page.  It gained a very slight heaviness from its standard ballad energy at the start, but it lasts that way throughout the whole nine minutes, so I only got about two thirds of it right.  It's really just an overlong ballad.

So now that that was over with, right back into the screechy metalcore like it's not a jarring difference.  This is Part 2.  They could've at least built into the conflict rather than making it instantaneous.  And of course, this song goes right into djenty weirdness to add another trope to the mix... although, this is the first song in this overlong album to do so, so I'm not too bothered by the trope.  Ironically, Clairvoyant Disease goes right back into alternative ballad territory, once again creating a jarring effect on the flow.  And finally, there's And All Things will End, which starts off with a riff similar to many Iced Earth songs, vaguely reminiscing thrash and power, but feeling right for the album here.  It's got much of the same drama as well, but the melodies are only decent and it doesn't hold a candle to any Iced Earth classics.

OK, I'm not gonna call this one of my favorite metalcore albums, but I'd say this album made AVS an easy band to LIKE, as opposed to an easy band to LOVE.  Their songs are poppy enough, maybe too poppy for metalcore and never displaying high points of creativity, but they try as much as they can with the genre they chose for themselves at the time and managed to keep things fairly entertaining with some sense of variety and a much better sense of emotion.

I've been putting off these guys for forever and I don't know why.  Maybe it's because I'm not really into alternative metal or related genres like multiple.  Now I've always liked Bat Country ever since I heard it on SSX On Tour for Gamecube, and it was one of many songs I kept on the custom playlist with classics like Stand Up and Shout by Dio, Dynamite by Scorpions and Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden.  There were others, but I quickly associated myself with the song.

I understand that the band is a very flavorful one, and has reinvented themselves multiple times, even after just one or two albums.  As an Arctic Monkeys and Led Zeppelin fan, I have absolutely no problem with this.  In fact, from what I understand, these guys are supposed to have sucked as a metalcore band, so in my curiosity I'll likely get through all of their albums soon.  But despite the fact that I've put them off for far too long (Bilbo Baggins, 2001), the biggest reason I'm checking them out right now is so I can have an opinion on them.  This was likely influenced not only by my recent curiosity pertaining to their other songs and the knowledge of their diverse history, but out of a Reddit conversation involving the qualifications of a metal band on Metallum.  So I'm gonna check them out from the start.

The somewhat symphonic and cinematic intro is nice, but as soon as these guys dig right into the metalcore, they lose all sense of atmospheric building, and stem into a random and yet surprisingly predictable and tropy metalcore band.  I really did NOT like "Turn the Other Way."  Its lack of organization was so amateurish that it might as well have stemmed from a poorly-recorded black metal pre-debut album garage demo.  There are only slight improvements over the next two songs, with a welcome edition of the Bad Religion-style melodic skate sound making its way into a little bit of The Art of Subconscious Illusion with the unpredictability feeling a little more organized, almost like a metalcore variant of NoMeansNo, not that they hold a candle to NoMeansNo, who are probably the greatest hardcore band on Earth.  It even gets pretty creepy near the end, which I have to appreciate for a band who just named themselves Avenged Sevenfold at the time.  But immediately after, the album gets samey, and the tropes just take turns with no direction other than to display the popular tropes, which means the real reason the last track worked was simply because it was a better variant of an otherwise chaotic mess all restricting itself into one genre.

It gets to the point where the piano rock song Warmness of the Soul is a breath of fresh air as opposed to a sore thumb situation because its simple and catchy sound is like a pillow in comparison to the tiring metalcore tropes.  And the album practically stays that way until we get their attempt at a Stairway to Heaven of their own with it going into softer melodic territory before going back into edgy metalcore tropes.  This means that the album only proves that Avenged Sevenfold had not grapsed creativity yet and tried to take an easy way into metal fame.  Obviously, it didn't work out yet.

When it comes to the “big four” of thrash metal, I’ve always been a huge fan of Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax, yet, for reasons unexplainable, I’ve never been able to get into Slayer. 1986’s ‘Reign in Blood’ is often hailed as one of the all-time greatest metal albums, though, other than it’s absolutely killer opening and closing tracks, I find the record to be mindless drivel (ooh, controversial...).

Yet here we are; 1988’s ‘South of Heaven’, the album where the band infamously “slowed down”. Admittedly, the songs are a bit more polished here, and the riffs are more than just open-string chugging away. Although the album as a whole is still pretty repetitive, and doesn’t sound any different than anything the band have done before.

Still, I’ll give Slayer their due. ‘South of Heaven’ is better than anything they had released beforehand, and if vocalist Tom Ayara could somehow implement just a little bit of melody in his singing, they could really be onto something. Instead, as always, while the musicianship is of a high standard, I find the vocals tend to just sit on top of the riffs, without really fitting in too well.

If I had to pick any highlights out, I’d say the title track, as well as ‘Silent Scream’, ‘Live Undead’ and ‘Mandatory Suicide’ are all decent enough, and there’s ‘Behind the Crooked Cross’, which I instantly recognized due to its use in 8-bit midi glory in the video game ‘Doom’ (a game I played religiously in my childhood, years before I should have been allowed to). But as is always the case with Slayer, I’m just not that big a fan, and would much rather listen to any other member of the big four.

Formed by former Angra frontman Andre Matos, Shaman is another one of those typical power/progressive metal bands that are pretty unknown and only have small, cult followings to go by. I’d seen ‘Ritual’, their 2002 debut album, pop up on a number of websites such as Amazon and eBay, where it was being compared to prog metal pioneers Dream Theater, and while I was never under any illusion that they were as good or prominent, it just seemed like they were a bit of a cult band that had something special to offer.

Unfortunately they’re not really anything out of the ordinary when it comes to this kind of music.

That’s not to say they’re bad, in fact, ‘Ritual’ took quite a few listens to get used to, but it’s actually a pretty decent album. It’s not overly “progressive”, but is definitely a typical power metal record with fast, upbeat songs (with an almost “happy vibe”), incredible musicianship, and in fairness, Matos vocals are damn impressive too. The tracks are all well produced, and with solid songwriting that takes influences from Brazilian music, it’s an interesting enough debut, if not generic, but still pretty good none-the-less.

Tracks like ‘For Tomorrow’, ‘Distant Thunder’, ‘Time Will Come’, ‘Here I Am’ and the title track are all pretty good songs that are definitely worth a listen if you’re into this kind of thing. While most of them employ the usual traits of the genre, there are a few moments that do make Shaman stand out. ‘For Tomorrow’ has a very nice, tribal sound, with some interesting vocals and guitar work, while ‘Time Will Come’ has some very tasty, speed metal-inspired riffs.

Shaman aren’t anything particularly unique or innovative, and while it took a fair amount of time to get into, I’m glad I stuck it out, because ‘Ritual’ is a pretty solid debut that shows a band that certainly has potential to improve.

Being an Australian extreme metal fanatic from way back in the late 1980's, it was perhaps inevitable that I'd possess a strong passion for arguably our most significant metal export (at least from purely an influential & creative sense) in Melbourne's masters of the doom/death sound diSEMBOWELMENT. I'd suggest that very few diehard fans suffer from as complete an infatuation as I do with this band though. I simply worship the ground they walk on & back in the early 1990's I thought of them as being a lot more than mere humans. Without actually knowing the band members, it was very hard for me to envisage them as being every-day people given the remarkably dark, unique & generally foreign sounds they managed to conjure up. I was talking to Bjorn from Grave Upheaval, Grotesque Bliss & Temple Nightside about them the other day & he shares my infatuation to a similar scale so it's not just me. diSEMBOWELMENT had a way of encapsulating everything that was so wonderful about the early 90's extreme metal scene &, to make things even more intense for a young Aussie, they were also from my home country which was a rarity for the elite metal artists in the world at the time. While there's no doubt at all that 1993's "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" album was a game-changer for the global doom/death scene though, for Bjorn & I it was diSEMBOWELMENT's 1992 E.P. "Dusk" that first saw that door opening & I've never felt that it received the respect it deserved because it's a remarkable release in its own right, particularly when you consider that it was the band's first proper release & that there was nothing out there that sounded anything like it at the time.

I was lucky enough to pick up an original copy of the "Dusk" E.P. as well as diSEMBOWELMENT's second demo tape "Deep Sensory Procession Into Aural Fate" by sending cash to the band in the mail. I can't quite remember the timeline for that taking place in respect to "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" but I think it's fair to say that all three releases would be placed on their own individual pedestals in my teenage bedroom from the time they first hit my ears. I even sought out the band's early 1990 "Mourning September" demo tape through the tape trading scene, a release that I found to be pretty decent without ever hinting at the same levels of euphoria as I'd received from diSEMBOWELMENT's subsequent efforts. It's interesting that, despite the clear crossover of material between the three most significant releases, I still think that all of them should be considered to be essential as they each bring something a little different to the table in terms of timbre & texture. None of them are particularly polished (which I strongly suspect was intentional) but there's definitely enough variation to keep things interesting.

The "Dusk" E.P. is a half-hour long affair that includes what were arguably diSEMBOWELMENT's finest three tracks so how could it not be a completely mind-blowing experience? It opens with the band's calling card in "The Tree of Life & Death", a nine-minute piece that begins with one of diSEMBOWELMENT's more brutal & blasting death metal passages before descending into the mire with some of the darkest extreme doom metal we'd heard to the time. It's a clear indication of the thick, oppressive atmosphere this band was capable of creating even at such an early point in their recording careers. The version we have here is remarkably similar to the one we receive on the debut full-length in September of 1993 too, perhaps having been given the time to fully develop after first being birthed on 1991's classic "Deep Sensory Procession Into Aural Fate" demo. This is followed by the epic twelve-minute "Burial at Ornans", another reenactment from the second demo tape & a piece which I feel still had a bit of work to do before reaching its most complete realization on "Transcendence Into the Peripheral". This is the reason for me not being able to reach full marks for "Dusk" actually as "Burial at Ornans" simply feels a little less complete than it would in the near future with some of the less doomy sections not maintaining such an elite level & the track lacking some of the atmospherics that it would gain on the album version. Eight-minute closer "Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores" is another story altogether though & brings with it the most transcendental aura, transporting me to wonderfully dark & obscure places that I'd never imagined existed before. Although I do feel that the album version is a little more polished & complete, this doesn't diminish the impact of what is undeniably one of the earlier examples of the funeral doom metal genre to hit a proper release. The sum of these three classic works leaves me succumbing to pure devastation & infatuation, very much in awe of my elder countrymen.

While "Dusk" may not quite be as fully realized as "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" was, all of the ingredients were already there to see the global metal scene receiving one of the true greats at their chosen craft. I mean, if this had ended up being the only diSEMBOWELMENT release then one gets the feeling that it would have received far more attention & be referenced by a wealth of extreme doom bands as being highly influential. As it stands though, I can't recommend "Dusk" enough. The monstrous vocals of guitarist Renato Gallina are as scary as you'll ever find in music & the instrumentation around them brings to mind the feeling of being a young child lost in the darkest of forests in the blackest of midnights with drummer Paul Mazziotta's blast-beats being used over the slowest, doomiest riffs imaginable in such a fashion that was completely unheard of at the time. The production is absolutely spot-on too, leaving layers of filth & decay in the guitar tone that works to further accentuate the sheer weight on the diSEMBOWELMENT sound. Perhaps I'm biased given my personal interactions with the band at such a young age (even if it was by mail) but I feel that I'm mature enough to be able to see the forest through the trees these days so I implore anyone who thinks bands like Spectral Voice, Winter or diSEMBOWELMENT's younger sibling Inverloch are where it's at to seek out "Dusk" as I have no doubt that you'll be dazzled by what the true masters of the doom/death genre had to offer way back in 1992.

I've always shown a keen interest in Dutch death metallers Gorefest, despite the fact that I don't regard any of their proper releases as being particularly essential. Their overall sound has just been something that appealed to me right from the first time I heard their debut album "Mindloss" back in the very early 1990's. That experience would see me following each successive full-length over their two-decade existence, as well as their excellent 1990 "Horrors in a Retarded Mind" demo tape which I really enjoyed. Gorefest's 1992 "False" sophomore album has always been the one that I've regarded as being the peak of their career though so it's strange that I haven't felt like revisiting it since the 1990's, even after finding their mid-to-late 2000's revival to be worth a listen. I've decided to rectify that this week though with Ben's extremely positive review giving me the final encouragement I needed to seek "Fales" out on Spotify a couple of days ago.

"False" doesn't muck around in placing its cards down on the table with an excellent Colin Richardson production job going a long way to maximizing the album's potential. The heavily down-tuned guitars work really well with the mainly mid-range tempos to create a unified & chunky death metal platform built on riffs that often offer more than a little groove. The occasional use of blast-beats from drummer Ed Warby (Ayreon/Vuur/Demiurg/Elegy/Hail of Bullets/The 11th Hour) is quite welcome but I feel that Gorefest are probably at their best when they slow things down during the doomier parts of the record. The instrumentation combines the up-tempo energy of Entombed & Grave with the more controlled heaviness of Bolt Thrower with bassist Jan-Chris de Koeijer's ultra-deep vocals representing the clear focal point of the Gorefest sound. I'd suggest that de Koeijer's delivery is more of a death bark than it is a death grunt or death growl actually. Strangely, his performance is a little inconsistent though as he seems to struggle to find his signature depth on "Second Face". It's the guitar solos of Boudewijn Bonebakker (Monomyth) & Frank Harthoorn (The 11th Hour) that are the real weakness for Gorefest though as neither are exactly virtuosos. Nor do they seem to have much of an idea of musical theory so often wander out of key, leaving me with more than the odd cringe on my face. I find that I can generally deal with this blemish though due to the solid riff-based platform the band have built around them.

The tracklisting is generally pretty consistent with only the flat "Get-a-Life" failing to hit the mark. The rest of the album varies from pretty decent to very solid with the highlights coming in the form of the pummeling opener "The Glorious Dead", the classy title track & the doom/death number "Infamous Existence". None of these songs reach classic status though & it's this absence of more elite examples of the death metal genre that sees the appeal of an album like "False" being capped a bit for me personally. Don't get me wrong, "False" is definitely worth a listen but it's not a record that I can see too many people placing at the top of their end of year lists, particularly not during the incredible creative peak the genre was experiencing at the time. In saying that, "False" wasn't all that far off being awarded a very solid four-star rating either & perhaps I would have gone that way if not for the lull that "Get-a-Life" brought during the middle of the album. Ben obviously feels that there's more in this record than I do with his 4.5 star rating surprising me a bit so maybe it's best if you give it a try for yourself but I can't see too many members of The Horde not getting something out of "False".

High on Fire is the louder, more fun cousin of stoner metal giants Sleep and even features the same guitar player in both groups. Since the turn of the century, High on Fire have been releasing consistent, high quality sludge metal that does not really need to be innovative or breaking boundaries, since a lot of modern sludge metal takes far more influence from doom.

This time around on Cometh the Storm, you can expect much the same. The record contains plenty of thrash inspired riffage from the title track, “Burning Down” and “The Beating.” Although the record does feel a little bit more restrained than previous releases. High on Fire are no young guns anymore and will not be maintaining these burning grooves going for very long. The record contains more tracks exceeding five (5) minutes, plus a nearly ten (10) minute closer. “Hunting Shadows” for example, is a well constructed song despite its runtime; it has a solid enough melodic motif that feels developed during its runtime, while still having room for thrash/sludge instrumental breaks and solos.

The more subdued tempos do cause Cometh the Storm to be a tad bit simple and I found parts of this album to have a fair share of comparisons to music by Mastodon and/or Baroness. But for High on Fire themselves, I think it has the potential to be a great look. Matt Pike’s vocals are brash, but still have melodic sense to them and sets a nice dichotomy against the riff heavy instrumentals. Overall, it’s yet another great addition to the High on Fire discography and likely the bands best output since De vermis mysteriis.

Best Songs: Burning Down, Cometh The Storm, The Beating, Lightning Beard

German thrash metal heavy-weights Sodom & I have enjoyed a generally fruitful relationship since I first discovered them through the "Ausgebombt" video clip shortly after the release of their 1989 "Agent Orange" album. Sodom’s early work was a bit too rough for my taste but, once they hit their stride with 1987’s “Expurse of Sodomy” E.P., I found them to offer a consistently energetic, high-octane brand of thrash that very much appealed to my tendency towards the more aggressive & generally gnarly exponents of the genre. Interestingly though, it’s 1990’s “Better Off Dead” fourth full-length that still sits at the top of the pile for me which is a little unexpected given that it saw Sodom watering down their approach a touch, instead focusing on some high-quality song-writing that was ultimately very successful. My positive experiences with that record saw me hanging out for the follow-up in 1992’s “Tapping The Vein”, an album that I’d purchase on CD as soon as it hit the shelves & one that would see Sodom turning up the heat significantly on the sound I’d enjoyed so much on “Better Off Dead”. Sodom had very clearly made a conscious effort to produce their most intense thrash record to date & I for one was totally up for it. “Tapping The Vein” is still a record that I revisit every so often these days but I’ve never gone to the effort of seeing where it sits in the overall Sodom back catalogue until now so let’s see how it’s faired, shall we?

“Tapping The Vein” is a rip-roaring, middle-finger-raising beast of a thrash record that would seem to be very much an attempt to draw back any parts of their fan base that they may have lost with their more accessible sounding previous record. The Harris Johns production job is nice & raw which suits the generally frantic material very well & most of the eleven-song tracklisting is made up of light-speed thrashfests with new guitarist Andy Brings showing some very impressive right-hand speed & endurance. In fact, I’d suggest that the dude must have seriously gone to town on himself as an early teenager based on the evidence here. There’s not a lot of originality or creativity in the majority of the riffs though with many of them sounding suspiciously like Sodom’s previous work or relying heavily on straight-forward, tremolo-picked bottom-string pedal-points. Band leader Tom Angelripper performs his role admirably, spitting out his words of war with an unbridled ferocity that only adds to the album’s dark & aggressive feel.

The tracklisting is pretty consistent with only the lacklustre German-language speed metal track “Wachturm” failing to reach a reasonable level of quality. “Bullet In The Head” relies on similar musical themes with Motorhead’s more metallic numbers being the order of the day. Sodom had successfully slowed things down a number of times on their last couple of albums & “One Step Over The Line” is another solid example of them taking more of a classic heavy metal direction, although it's admittedly pretty similar to the popular “The Saw Is The Law” single from “Better Off Dead” if you look at it closely. The rest of the record can only be described as a relentless bombardment of maximum-velocity Teutonic thrash metal which may not take many risks but still offers plenty of reward for an old-school thrasher like myself. The high point comes in the form of the wonderful “Hunting Season” which I rate alongside most of Sodom’s best work although opener “Body Parts” & the excellent title track are also worthy of mention as some of the stronger inclusions.

While “Tapping The Vein” can be seen as being fairly regressive from an artistic perspective, I’m not sure that most of Sodom’s fan base cares to be honest. I certainly don’t, particularly when the results are as rock solid as this collection of German thrash anthems are. I honestly can’t see too many Kreator, Slayer or Destruction fans complaining too much when presented with a vicious, bruising affair like “Tapping The Vein”, even if it might not be the Sodom record that they immediately reach for when they feel like revisiting the band. After looking at it closely, I’d suggest that “Tapping The Vein” might even slip into my top five Sodom releases these days, sitting just behind “Better Off Dead”, “Persecution Mania”, “Agent Orange” & “Expurse of Sodomy”. I’d easily take it over their highly regarded pre-1987 works but then I’ve never been much of a fan of releases like “In the Sign of Evil”, “Obsessed by Cruelty” or their earlier demo tapes.

I really wanted to enjoy the newest album from Eidola, since it has a lot of the new metalcore trends that I typically enjoy: great beauty/beast vocal dichotomy, production that does not sound like a brick, progressive focus on the instrumentals, and breakdowns that are anything other than fruitless.

It's too bad that Eviscerate suffers in much the same way as all previous Eidola albums. While the album starts off very solid and executes all of these elements mention previously very well, Eidola run out of steam around "Fistful of Hornets" and start making some very safe, unoriginal metalcore. I feel like I was supposed to be impressed by "Golgotha Compendium: Fifth Temple" with it's extended runtime and dynamic usage, but they forgot to include the ear infecting hook to push it over the edge into a progressive metalcore masterpiece.

That said, I do not think this records back half is bad from a structure standpoint. I think the mixing is great and highlights all of the important elements that make the first half as good as it was. I would imagine those looking for a more straightforward or transition point into the world of progressive metalcore would not mind this drop off in quality as much. But for me, Eviscerate kind of transforms into a big letdown.

It's always difficult for me to review drone type albums. For one, I find them to be mostly boring as this style of music is not really known for all-encompassing songwriting or dynamic growth. The other reason has to do with a sheer lack of effort. Drone music is notorious for having some of the least talented musicians of any genre, throw on some guitar feedback and match it with a barely salvageable bass line. It's the kind of subversive behaviour in music that really makes me question whether or not my diploma was ever worth it at all.

But every once in a while, someone comes along and provides life into a lifeless genre. A Chaos of Flowers by Big|Brave is Montreal's attempts making drone metal while giving the listener a slight bit of unease. I don't know what's going on with the echo effect in the guitar here, but it gives the instrumentals just a jolt of uncomforting grit and I think that it plays off quite well with the more gothic vocal stylings of Robin Wattie. Wattie's delivery can be monotonous, but performs them with just enough power to liken them to some of Chelsea Wolfe's most powerful moments in their discography.

I think that the percussion plays a big role in providing this record with the emotion that it has. The guitars can become quite loud and almost excessive throughout the recording, so for the percussion to stay back with these deliberately slow grooves, and likely played with brush sticks is nice. Having recently come out of a technical death metal backup, I was fully expecting A Chaos of Flowers to explode into this epic doom metal breakdown at any second, and yet the percussion never allowed it to get there. It helped me appreciate the space where nothing was happening and I was further able to appreciate the sporadic moments more.

While an improvement from last years Nature Morte, in terms of atmospherics and length, the album does seem a little bit lazy during "Chanson pour mon ombre" and "A Song for Marie Part III." I can see why this might be the case, but it cuts down on the albums length tremendously and almost makes it feel like less than a completed project. But if you enjoy the gothic sounds of Chelsea Wolfe, and the unsettling environment of a Lingua Ignota record, then I recommend giving A Chaos of Flowers a chance.

Best Songs: Not Speaking of the Ways, Canon : In Canon, Moonset

My initial exposure to Miami-based death/thrash outfit Solstice came through the tape trading scene of the early-to-mid 1990’s when I picked up a copy of their 1992 self-titled debut album from one of my trade contacts. From what I was hearing from the metal grapevine Solstice sounded like they’d be right up my alley & that certainly proved to be the case with the album becoming a mainstay on my Walkman over the next year or so. In fact, I’ve found myself returning to “Solstice” several times over the many years since as it’s become a proven performer when I feel like expending large amounts of energy in a short time period by thrashing my body around my loungeroom or car. For that reason, I’ve been very much looking forward to finally taking a detailed look at the album with the intent of awarding it a well-informed Metal Academy rating & review.

There’s no doubt at all that “Solstice” is the type of metal record that takes no prisoners & has no fucks whatsoever to give about it either. It’s full of energy & is violently aggressive in the way it approaches its task. The production job feels a little closer to a death metal one than your average thrash record while the use of blast-beats from drummer Alex Marquez (Brutality/Cephalic Carnage/Demolition Hammer/Hellwitch/Malevolent Creation/Resurrection) also draw the record towards that space along with the vicious vocals of guitarist Rob Barrett (Cannibal Corpse/Hateplow/Malevolent Creation) which sit somewhere between Death’s Chuck Schuldiner & Pantera’s Phil Anselmo. Despite the clear hints at death metal though, the majority of the instrumentation simply feels more closely aligned with thrash to me so I tend so think of “Solstice” as more of a brutal thrash record than I do a death/thrash one, particularly given that Barrett’s vocals possess a bit of an angry hardcore edge to them that does tend to lack a little in the sophistication department at times.

The tracklisting is very solid with only the silly decision to include a novelty crossover thrash track (i.e. “S.M.D.” aka “Suck My Dick”) tainting an otherwise extremely consistent record. With that said though, I can’t say that there are any genuine classics on offer with Solstice earning their stripes through their overall sound at the expense of any particularly memorable song-writing. They opt to give the listener a royal battering but you’ll rarely find yourself humming along to their riffs afterwards which is the difference between a record like “Solstice” & the heavy-weights of the brutal thrash game like “Epidemic of Violence” or “Idolatry”. Still… there’s something to be said for a bit of “good, friendly violent fun” & Solstice certainly deliver that in spades. It’s hard to deny the pedigree of a band like this one too with guitarist Dennis Munoz (Demolition Hammer) & bassist Mark van Erp (Monstrosity/Cynic/Malevolent Creation) having already spent some time with some household names of the extreme metal scene. Hell, we even get to enjoy the legendary James Murphy contributing guest guitar solos on a few of the tracks which brings some much needed additional melody to the table.

If brutal thrash is your bag then I’ll be surprised if you’re not already acquainted with this record but, if not, then try to picture a combination of the relentless thrash metal assault of Demolition Hammer & Exhorder & the thrashy death metal of early Malevolent Creation. Perhaps, “Solstice” won’t go on to become the classic release it had the potential to on paper but it’s a damn fine record nonetheless.

Lured into a 2024 release by the impressive On the Sight of Dusk on this month's The North playlst, I have spent a week or so with A Pale Crown playing at least once a day.  Strong with Satyricon vibes and grimly resplendent in the stronger Judas Iscariot and Taake sound also, Narbeleth draw on solid influences from more than one corner of the black metal universe.  Originating from a country with no established scene (go on tell me there's a big black metal underground scene in Cuba), this duo have clearly allowed their isolation to nurture their reflections on the very foundations of the genre itself and their clearly well-practised artform is about as authentic as it gets as a result.

I find this album to carry a very organic style to it.  Nothing here sounds forced; to the point, in fact, where it all sounds like it just comes so darn naturally to Dakkar and Vindok.  At six albums in to their career, you could argue that they fucking well should know what they are doing by now.  Fact is, they create this rich and luscious tapestry without sounding like they are even breaking sweat in doing so.  Far from being just a melodic bm album, this record is an album that knows how to embrace melody without doing so at the expense of darkness.  Harnessing a maturity in their songwriting, Narbeleth add depth without looking to experimental techniques or sound.  Instead they present variety to pace and tempo perfectly and I think this makes the album sound more melodic than it actually is.

Acoustics just seep into tracks, their strings sounding huge and almost comforting.  Riffs dance and jaunt through tracks supported by some very simplistic, yet incredibly effective drums.  This feels like a very controlled and measured performance by a band very much in tune with the history of the genre at large.  It sits in a space somewhere above pure worship but stands clear in its lack of intention to uproot any boundaries either.  Any fan of black metal can appreciate what Narbeleth have done here.  More please.

By the time Autopsy's 1992 "Fiend For Blood" E.P. was released I'd already been listening to them for a few years. I'd been lucky enough to discover the Californian death metal deviants through their 1989 debut album "Severed Survival" & had also investigated a couple of their 80's demo tapes but it was really Autopsy's excellent duo of 1991 releases that saw me standing up & paying attention, buoyed by their stronger focus on the band's doomier side which I found to be their most attractive (or repulsive if we're being entirely transparent) element. I purchased the band's sophomore album "Mental Funeral" on cassette immediately upon release & gave it a royal thrashing for many months which has not only seen it still residing at the very pinnacle of my Autopsy pile but also drove me to repeat the dosage by picking up a cassette copy of 1992's "Fiend For Blood" E.P. shortly after it hit the shelves. Much like Autopsy's 1991 releases, I remember finding it to possess a really unique sound that has rarely been captured or even attempted since & recall hired gun fretless bass virtuoso Steve DiGiorgio's contribution being one of the major drawcards so I've been busting to give it a revisit for some time, not only to recapture my enthusiasm for the record itself but also to see where it sits versus "Mental Funeral" & the very solid doom/death of 1991's "Retribution For The Dead" E.P.

"Fiend For Blood" is the very definition of the sick, serial-killer inspired, intentionally filthy death metal sound. Even the cover artwork is kept fairly simple with the production job being handled by the band themselves & resulting in a strangely bass-heavy mix that further highlights Autopsy's tendency to back the distortion off a bit in the interest of giving the release a less polished feel. Everything is MEANT to feel a little sloppy & grimy in order to further exacerbate Autopsy's imagery & it works a treat, providing a wonderful platform for the angular style of DiGiorgio (my favourite bass player) to work its magic & become a real highlight of the release. Even the strange discrepancies in where the guitar solos are positioned in the mix seems to buy into this idea while the absurdly over-the-top vocal delivery of drummer Chris Reifert (Static Abyss/Abscess/Death/The Ravenous) sounds almost appropriate when plonked down over this sickly orchestra of the damned.

The six tracks fly by in quick succession with the short twelve minute runtime seeming entirely appropriate as it leaves me wanting more which can't be a bad thing. A couple of those songs are very short with the opening title track & the outstandingly doomy "A Different Kind of Mindfuck" clocking in at under a minute. The other four songs see Autopsy consistently switching between their faster tremolo-picked, early Death inspired death metal riffs & their seriously dark doom metal sections, the faster parts not having nearly the same sort of impact on me as the masterful doom riffs. Autopsy seem to have this real knack for hitting on some particularly eerie atmospheres when they slow things down & this talent is rarely seen in a more effective format than it is here with the unique production job only providing them with further weight.

Perhaps "Fiend For Blood" isn't the most significant release in the grand scheme of the death metal genre but it's a damn enjoyable one nonetheless. There's no time for filler here with every one of the six tracks packing a punch but it's the atmospherics & sickening imagery that are the real drawcard as Autopsy successfully manage to make my skin creep once again. "Mental Funeral" is still the band's finest hour but "Fiend For Blood" should most certainly come into the discussion for runner-up in my opinion. In fact, I've actually been surprised to find that I may even place it slightly ahead of "Retribution For The Dead" these days so fans of Asphyx, Obituary & Abscess should definitely check it out.

4/5

Up until 1992, Birmingham grindcore godfathers Napalm Death had represented more of a novelty than a major player in my musical life. I'd happily purchased all three of their albums for that pleasure but found their two seminal 1980's grindcore full-lengths to be nothing more than a bit of fun. And while 1990's "Harmony Corruption" third record may have added some of my beloved death metal to the equation, it didn't exactly blow me away either. There had been a few pretty decent E.P.'s released between them too & I'd greedily lapped them all up, buoyed by the sheer extremity of it all, an attribute that I was actively seeking out in my music at the time (& no doubt still are). I have to admit though, nothing the band had done had quite stuck the landing up until that point with possible exception of their short 1988 "The Curse" single which I really dug. 1992 would mark somewhat of a new era for Napalm Death though with long-time drum legend Mick Harris having departed after 1991's "Mass Appeal Madness" E.P. & been replaced by Danny Herrera (Venomous Concept). This change probably would have had a few diehard fans on edge a little as Harris had played arguably the most major role in the creation of both Napalm Death & the grindcore sound in general. For me personally though, 1992's "Utopia Banished" album would be the first Napalm Death album that I'd purchase immediately upon release & it's arguably remained my favourite release from their entire back catalogue for all the years since so I think it's fair to say that Herrera's induction into Napalm Death was a rousing success.

Napalm Death's first two albums represent some of the purest & rawest examples of the grindcore genre you're likely to find so there was unsurprisingly a little bit of a mixed response when they incorporated some of the death metal sounds they were hearing around them on "Harmony Corruption". It wasn't, however, a clear-cut death metal record as such with grindcore still playing a strong enough role in the outcome to see me tagging it as deathgrind. "Utopia Banished" sees the grind component being drawn upon a little more than it was on its predecessor & resulting in a more extreme & relentlessly savage deathgrind record that's buoyed by a stellar production job from Colin Richardson. Everything simply sounds so in-your-face with the riffs maintaining definition under some of the most violent drumming the world had heard to the time & with the iconic Mark "Barney" Greenway (Benediction/Extreme Noise Terror) producing some his finest signature barking over the top. The sheer energy of this material saw it immediately grabbing my attention but it also possessed a class that we hadn't heard from a Napalm Death full-length before too. The riffs of Jesse Pintado (Brujeria/Lock Up/Terrorizer) & Mitch Harris (Defecation/Meathook Seed/Righteous Pigs) are more sophisticated & very capably executed while the song structures offer a touch more complexity. The blast beat sections are beautifully positioned to ensure maximum impact with Herrera producing a stellar performance in his own right &, in doing so, putting any fears that the loss of Mick Harris would derail the Napalm Death train to bed.

The cover art is some of Napalm Death's best with the striking red & blue image coming across as both rebellious & shocking at the same time. It brilliantly depicts what the band were all about at the time in my opinion with a collage of social injustices being layered in a way that presents the band as the leaders of the resistance. The tracklisting kicks off in emphatic style too with the industrial noise of "Discordance" proving to be the perfect aural equivalent of the image I just mentioned & when the band blast in with one of their finest works in "I Abstain" I find myself being delightedly crushed under the weight of sound being projected out of my speakers at extreme velocities. The brutal "Dementia Access" follows in quick succession & at this point I'm thinking that we might have a genuinely classic metal release on our hands but things do settle down a bit from there with only the spectacular "Upward & Uninterested" seeing those levels of quality revived. The remainder of the 15-track album is all very solid & unwaveringly consistent in its execution but I can't say that it reaches the same sort of euphoric levels as the tracks I've already mentioned. Each song contains a number of exciting sections but invariably has them offset by some more hardcore-inspired sections that offer me a little less appeal & that's always been a bit of an issue for me with grindcore as I can never quite get the best releases up into my top rating bracket due to my inability to get as excited about the bouncier punk beats. "Utopia Banished" is no doubt one of the stronger examples though as it doesn't present the listener with any real weaknesses, instead choosing to flex its muscles & embrace the sound that the band had been so instrumental in creating in the first place.

At the end of the day, "Utopia Banished" was a unanimous success in my opinion & it still feels like the record that best reflects Napalm Death's sound to me. I just wish that it had lived up to the potential that it hinted at from the commencement of the tracklisting as I really (& I mean REALLY) dig the violence & extremity but can't quite overcome my issues with grindcore's hardcore roots. If the band had opted for a shorter release that dropped that component & simply focused on the half-time, tremolo-picked death metal riffs & the ultra-brutal blast-beat grind sections then we'd probably have my ultimate extreme metal album but, as it is, "Utopia Banished" is still a very fine representation of what Napalm Death have brought to the world & fans of bands like Terrorizer, early Brutal Truth & mid-period Extreme Noise Terror should definitely stand up & pay attention.

It's been a few years since I was last interested in Septicflesh. But that's just my modern heavy side of metal talking. Sometimes I just want to focus on what my metal heart really wants. Right now, my heart is in the mood for melodeath and symphonic death metal. And with that Mayan album I've reviewed making me up for more of the latter subgenre than before, let's see what we got from revisiting Septicflesh's transition into their new era...

Septicflesh was originally formed with a slightly different name, Septic Flesh (with a space between the words). Their sound was originally death metal/death-doom with several orchestral suites. Soon they started combining those two separate sounds into one, and after a few-year hiatus, here we are in their comeback album Communion!

Introducing listeners to the band's new improved sound is "Lovecraft's Death". Not even the earlier heavier fans would fear the orchestration. "Anubis" is a more memorable track starting with clean guitar melody with its Egyptian vibe fitting with the mythology. The title track blasts through deathly chaos as ominous verses alternate with f***ing earth-shattering drumming and background choir. Though it's a little hard to take that seriously when it sounds like Meow Mix (thanks for pointing that out, Rex).

"Babel's Gate" carries the new formula further. Same with "We the Gods", though a bit half-baked while still good. In the next track "Sunlight/Moonlight", there's more positive atmosphere to break up the spookiness. That's what I enjoy here!

Next track "Persepolis" is the longest track of the album and one of the most enjoyable. However, it leads to the worst song here, "Sangreal". I enjoyed this track when I was still listening to this band a few years ago, but now, not so much. The lyrics in the chorus are so cringe, "Sangreal, how real..." It's just way too atrociously poppy when sung. The closing "Narcissus" also doesn't fit too well. It's just straight-up melodeath, which is fine, but not in this album, with only the midsection soloing being its saving grace.

If we can ignore those final two tracks, we have an album filled with emotional greatness that is Communion. Septicflesh have proven their place in the Greek metal league alongside Nightrage and Rotting Christ, and I would recommend this album for anyone up for a blend of epicness and heaviness. Or at least the first 7 tracks....

Favorites: "Lovecraft's Death", "Anubis", "Communion", "Sunlight/Moonlight", "Persepolis"

Earlier this week I went about the process of revisiting the 1992 sophomore album “Buried Secrets” from unusual New York avant-garde jazz metal trio PainKiller. It had literally been decades since I last heard the three PainKiller full-lengths but I was really surprised to find that their second album offered me a level of appeal that I’d not received from it before. I guess I’m just a lot more open-minded with my music these days. That’s not to say that it wasn’t inconsistent because it most certainly was with the short grindcore sections adding no value to anyone’s life whatsoever. It was the lengthier, more restrained & slightly less consciously abstract material that floated my boat with all of the more significant tracks hitting the mark. From memory, I think I devoured all of PainKiller’s albums within about a week & I recall them getting better with each release so I had visions of their 1991 debut album “Guts of a Virgin” being an absolute abomination (& not the good type either). Given my newly found positivity for “Buried Secrets” though, I thought I’d challenge myself by giving it a few spins too.

There are similarities & differences between PainKiller’s first two albums. They both contain the screeching alto saxophone of John Zorn over almost every track, there’s a grindcore component to many of the tracks that pops up & disappears as quickly as it came & the band explores a number of different styles & genres around those core elements. There’s no doubt that “Guts of a Virgin” is the more extreme of the two records though. It’s twelve songs clock in at just 24 minutes in duration with the grindcore elements being drawn upon a little more readily. I still wouldn’t call this a grindcore record though as the combined length of those sections is really quite short with the remainder of the album feeling better suited to a few alternate genre tags in avant-garde jazz, avant-garde & experimental rock, the last of which is a little different from “Buried Secrets” which tended to explore more metallic genres like sludge metal & industrial metal whereas “Guts of a Virgin” dips its toes into rockier & jazzier sounds at times. The debut also includes some psychotic vocal screams from former Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris which are pretty harsh & abrasive on the ears to be frank. As with “Buried Secrets”, the album finishes with a pretty decent drone metal number too although this one sits quite a distance beneath the classic “The Toll” in terms of being a truly transcendental experience.

Both albums certainly contain their fair share of absolute rubbish. The difference between them is that “Buried Secrets” has a lot more meat on its bones & the crap on “Guts of a Virgin” tends to be… well… crappier. In fact, there are really only three songs that I enjoy here & I don’t think it’s any surprise to find them corresponding with the more traditional sounding pieces on the tracklisting because I’m simply not the guy for intentionally whacky music that offers more in the way of novelty value than it does from a musical standpoint. I really enjoyed Bill Laswell’s dubbier influence on a couple of tracks from “Buried Secrets” too but it’s nowhere to be found on “Guts of a Virgin”.

Perhaps I’m not the target audience for a record like this one but I have to ask… is there really one & are they actually music fans? Look… “Guts of a Virgin” is nowhere near as bad as I first thought it was but it’s a long way from an enjoyable listen either. In saying that, I get the distinct feeling that PainKiller’s third album “Execution Ground” might be the one to offer me the most appeal based purely on my past scores & its general genre-tagging which sees dark ambient & ambient dub playing a strong role at the expense of grindcore. Perhaps I should hook myself up with some of them apples shortly, huh?

Swedish metal stalwarts Taimat have gone through a number of musical transformations over the years & it depends on your musical taste & background as to which you prefer. Personally, I’ve always favoured Tiamat’s mid-90’s gothic releases with 1994’s “Wildhoney” being their clear pièce de résistance. Their 1997 fifth album “A Deeper Kind of Slumber” saw them moving away from metal altogether with most of that record favouring a progressive goth rock sound over the band’s more sinister roots but it was still a very strong release in its own right. Tiamat’s pre-“Wildhoney” albums tend to be a little more divisive though & not without justification either.

Tiamat’s 1990 debut album “Sumerian Cry” took more of a death metal direction which didn’t do much for me to be honest but its follow-up “The Astral Sleep” was a doomier affair that was where the band started to becoming interesting to me with 1992’s third album “Clouds” seeing Taimat moving even further down that rabbit hole. Ben & I owned “Clouds” on CD back in the day & I remember quite liking it but it wasn’t a release that I’ve returned to all that often which is likely more of a reflection on just how strong Tiamat’s next two albums would turn out to be than anything else. It’s been decades since I last investigated “Clouds” though so I was looking forward to refreshing my memory a bit this week.

Although “Clouds” is generally touted as being a doom/death release, I’ve never agreed with that sentiment. As a death metal musician myself, I can tell you that there’s bugger-all genuine death metal on the album. Even the vocals of rhythm guitarist Johan Edlund don’t come close to anything particularly deathly, instead taking the form of an awkward hybrid of clean & growly styles. There’s not much that resembles death metal in the instrumentation either other than some sporadic up-tempo parts that seem to have been haphazardly inserted into the tracklisting at random intervals, a feature that I regard as the clear weakness of “Clouds” as an album. Actually, I’d go so far as to say that the best moments on “Clouds” are when Tiamat completely leave their past behind & forge ahead with their newer influences which results in an attractive brand of gothic doom metal that offers a lot more crossover appeal than the band’s earlier works.

The production job & instrumental performances are very good for the time with the riffs possessing a thick, tight & completely unified tone that takes a great deal of influence from classic Celtic Frost. The lead guitar work of Thomas Petersson is of a high quality & shows him to not only possess some pretty reasonable chops but also to have a good ear for melody. Edlund’s vocals are the clear talking point for those that dislike “Clouds” though & it’s not hard to see why as he’s not the most talented front man you’ve ever heard but I find that I can accept him for what he is & get on with enjoying the album most of the time.

The eight-song tracklisting is pretty consistent with only the very ordinary “Smell of Incense” failing to maintain my interest. Doomy closer “Undressed” is the clear highlight for me personally as it possesses a wonderful atmosphere that engulfs the listener &, in doing so, has gone on to become a genuine classic from my teenage years. Opener “In A Dream” & the one-two punch of “A Caress of Stars” & “The Sleeping Beauty” are also very solid with only those annoying accelerated bursts I mentioned earlier managing to taint Tiamat’s good work. I really enjoy the use of keyboards which provide further melodic support for the heavy riffs & give the album a dreamy feel that would foresee the direction the band would take on their next record.

Much like “The Astral Sleep”, I find “Clouds” to be a generally entertaining listen but I can’t say that I feel like returning to it all that often. It certainly contains some pretty solid material to sift through for inclusion in your weekend playlist (particularly if you’re into bands like Paradise Lost, Katatonia & Lake of Tears) but it lacks enough genuine highlights to see it becoming a regular fixture when I feel like reaching for Tiamat as the next two albums simply feel superior. Now that I’m discussing all these old records though, it’s made me realise that I haven’t heard anything Tiamat have released since “A Deeper Kind of Slumber” so perhaps I should rectify that at some stage.

Mayan is a side-project by Epica members Mark Jansen and Ariën van Weesenbeek. Many of the other members of the bands Jansen is in (including his former band After Forever) are as super talented as he is. Mayan has had a massive powerhouse of musicians of vocalists in their progressive/symphonic death metal albums. And after their starting duo of Quarterpast and Antagonise, here they are again in Dhyana (sounds like the name of someone I once knew)!

I had not followed Mayan since my big switch from epic melody to modern heaviness in my metal taste, and that switch happened just under a year before Dhyana came out. I just can't believe what I missed out until now! The band have sealed their balance between metal and orchestra without extra experimentation. The vocal department shines best from female vocalists Laura Macri and Marcela Bovio. The hauntingly beautiful soprano Laura was a session member for Quarterpast then joined the band full-time for Antagonise. The operatic energetic Stream of Passion vocalist Marcela was a session member for Antagonise then joined the band full-time for this album.

"The Rhythm of Freedom" is a glorious 7-minute opening track with different well-structured layers. Jansen and co. were reinventing the wheel and making it unbreakable. "Tornado of Thoughts (I Don't Think, Therefore I Am)" continues this powerful cauldron. "Saints Don't Die" throws back greatly to Quarterpast with the power metal vocals of Henning Basse, who was with the band since that album but left the band just before the release of Dhyana, while making a few guest appearances. The title track is an odd ballad. Despite being a interesting composition where the two female vocalists shine over classical/acoustic instrumentation, it doesn't seem that distinctive, rather being out of place in between the aggression of most other tracks. Still I like the uniqueness of that soft ballad.

"Rebirth from Despair" breaks the quietness with its soaring blast-beats and riff-wrath, complete with Marcela's serene vocal glory. One of the best and heaviest tracks here! "The Power Process" starts with the clean female singing duo who then rise into a duel with the deathly screamed vocals. Soon it leads to a calm piano bridge followed by a heavy talented guitar solo towards the end, all making things interesting. The 9-minute progressive epic "The Illusory Self" is the best way to summarize all this album has to offer, from the classic riffing to the epic choruses. This should've been the end of the album right there, but it's OK that it isn't, because there's more of the epicness to come...

Another ballad "Satori" consists mostly of just the expressive soprano vocals of Laura and mystical background orchestra. Then we moved into "Maya - The Veil Of Delusion" (I almost thought of that djenty deathcore band and the Cynic song they're named after). The boys just wanna have fun, as the all-male side of the vocal department shine in perfect intensity. Then "The Flaming Rage of God" has some more fury. Finally, "Set Me Free" ends the album as an excellent blazing anthem.

If there was anything that would renew my interest in the progressive/symphonic death metal of Mayan's first two albums, this is it. Dhyana has the best of what I once loved about those albums. I may be a more serious grown-up more interested in modern heaviness, but I'm slowly regaining memories of my epic melodic youth!

Favorites: "The Rhythm of Freedom", "Saints Don't Die", "Rebirth from Despair", "The Illusory Self", "Maya - The Veil Of Delusion", "Set Me Free"

As I try to get back in touch with music from the more epic and melodic metal bands I've been familiar is, Before the Dawn is another one of those bands. Recently, the band reformed along with his side-project Dawn of Solace after founder Tuomas Saukkonen spent some time with his own different band Wolfheart. Now let's look back at one of the albums from the initial run of Before the Dawn...

Soundscape of Silence continues the Dark Tranquillity-esque gothic melodeath sound that reached its height in the previous album Deadlight. The riffs, bass, and vocals fit in the cold production. Honestly, I prefer Saukkonen's harsh vocals more than the clean singing by bassist Lars Eikind. Saukkonen can really pull off his distinct rough voice.

"Dying Sun" would've been a good song, but Eikind's cleans sound awkward and more overly dramatic than melancholic. Deathstar Rising would have more of that before thankfully being absent in Rise of the Phoenix. Next song "Exile" continues that issue, sounding redundant when the guitar leads do their melodic work. "Silence" has better melodic riffing that isn't too far off from The Haunted and even 36 Crazyfists. "Dead Reflection" has some of that great Omnium Gatherum melody.

The more positive "Hide Me" has melodic Insomnium-like leads that would make the song shine well if not for Eikind's vocals. "Fabrication" has some of the crystalline yet heavy riffing melody of Crystal Lake. "Saviour" speeds things up while leaning a bit into Black Veil Brides in the metalcore-ish riffing.

The one song where Eikind sounds good is "Monsters" where he sings in more natural delivery in the soft verses, and it doesn't get in the way of the heavy guitar. "Cold" twists through speedy guitarwork that stir up catchy melody that I enjoy. Then it leads to the "Last Song", my favorite track here and one of the best by the band. The quite intro building up into harmonic guitars in a grand climax has the right sense of closure, without Eikind's poor vocals! The bonus track "Ignite" is a decent piece of melodeath.

After not hearing Before the Dawn in a few years, I made a rather iffy return via revisiting Soundscape of Silence. Saukkonen is the main star here, not Eikind. As interesting as it is to add gothic instrumentation/vocals to melodeath, not all of that aspect is enjoyable....

Favorites: "Silence", "Dead Reflection", "Monsters", "Cold", "Last Song"

Wintersun isn't the only band to make us wait around a decade for part 2 of an album series. Scar Symmetry have their ongoing The Singularity trilogy going on, and Phase II - Xenotaph came out 9 years after Phase I - Neohumanity. It was nice listening to Phase I almost a decade ago, but that's where my Scar Symmetry journey stopped after I began to explore less epic, heavier modern metal. So here's my great return to the world of Scar Symmetry, with a few crooked steps...

Xenotaph feels a lot more like an actual album with all tracks being full songs, twice the amount of full songs Neohumanity had alongside a couple interludes, all the more reason to consider that album the band's own Time I. As a result, Xenotaph's full length reaches almost an hour. Some tracks have wild speed, others have slow tranquility.

Heading straight into the heavy blasting action without an intro, "Chrononautilus" stuns me with the strength the band has maintained after their long hiatus, in the singles that lead up to this long-awaited album. Lars Palmqvist ascends like a neohuman angel with his enigmatic clean singing, in contrast to the demonic growls of Roberth Karlsson. Excellent! The other single "Scorched Quadrant" follows with a phenomenal sound like late 90s In Flames modernized and sci-fi-ed. I probably would've loved it perfectly if the chorus didn't sound too much like Madonna's "La Isla Bonita", along with the cleans not sounding too quiet. I still enjoy it! Then things lighten up in "Overworld", particularly in the chorus, to combat the otherwise negative atmosphere. Next track "Altergeist" has f***ing heavy blast beats.

My favorite track here is "Reichsfall". There's dynamic elegance in the intro before the usual heavy fight and melodic flight. The pace often slows down right before the chorus, losing a bit of dynamic while still sounding cool. The vocals are amazing, but I can't tell the higher notes are real or done with a vocoder similar to Cynic. Either way, that along with the guitar melodies spawn a pleasant Blind Guardian vibe. What a progressive adventure within an adventure! I can almost think of "Digiphrenia Dawn" as combining the modern heaviness of Fear Factory with the power metal of Powerwolf. "Hyperborean Plains" has some guitar fiddling that's almost like the 8-bit synths of HORSE the Band or Machinae Supremacy translated into electric guitar. "Gridworm" drives through the band's amazing talent without needing a break. That deathly gem is filled with some awesome hammering sh*t!

As amazing as "A Voyage with Tailed Meteors" sounds in the title and heavy instrumentation, the production seems a bit raw and empty. "Soulscanner" brings melody and speed up front, almost like Sonic Syndicate on steroids. That's quite wicked and will gear you up for the final epic... The 8-minute title closer concludes this part of the Singularity trilogy, blending their own usual sci-fi melodeath with the extreme progressiveness of Ne Obliviscaris. By the end of this epic, you'll be wanting more from this saga and hoping you'll get it from the upcoming third part.

With all that said, Scar Symmetry still have their strength in Xenotaph. Let's just hope things improve a bit before the 3rd and final part of the trilogy that will hopefully come by the end of this decade. And when it finally comes, maybe it will inspire Wintersun founder Jari Mäenpää to make Time III, but I'm already hoping for too much....

Favorites: "Chrononautilus", "Scorched Quadrant", "Reichsfall", "Gridworm", "Soulscanner", "Xenotaph"

"When all is fire and flaming air. When all is said and all is done. Beneath the ground, and man lies dead. When all the earth is a cold grave and no more brave." It is a quote to remember from this Edge of Sanity track that somehow didn't end up in this compilation despite sharing the same name...

Edge of Sanity is one of the leading bands of Swedish melodeath, though there's never as much credit for that band developing the genre as the Gothenburg trio (At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity, In Flames). When All is Said compiles tracks from all major releases, two per album. The second disc has the two Crimson albums/suites that were shortened slightly to fit in the 80-minute CD limit. The edited versions would later be split into several tracks (not according to lyrical movements) for streaming services.

"Tales" starts the first disc and the song's original album Nothing but Death Remains with a spooky keyboard intro before progressing into raw death metal heaviness. The production is a bit poor, but the track is nice and decent. Something to note about the first minute of "Human Aberration" is how faulty volume control is in the production. The guitars and bass still please me despite the lack of proper delivery. The Unorthodox section kicks off with the diverse "Enigma", which introduces a melodic section complete with clean singing. "In the Veins/Darker than Black" starts slow with heavy riffing, then founder Dan Swano starts growling through the verse with fast drumming. The song keeps switching from melody and brutality before heading into groove/thrash metal followed by blasting black metal. More promising variety than "Enigma"!

"The Masque" has some melodic groove-ish verse riffing that springs to mind melodic death 'n' roll. The Spectral Sorrows is where Dan was really thinking outside the box with his deathly style. "Lost" has some catchy greatness in the structure. The title track of the EP Until Eternity Ends has nice dynamic melody. The gothic singing hinted in The Spectral Sorrows is quite interesting while staying in character with the sound. This different direction is tested out again in "Eternal Eclipse" with more rock-out melody. Having almost forgotten about Purgatory Afterglow after my last listen a few years ago, that album's opener "Twilight" almost caught me off-guard with its synth/vocal intro when checking out this compilation. There is catchy progressive action in the riffing with cool vocals. There's also a bit of death-doom to remind some of Novembers Doom. Then halfway through is a soft spoken passage. "Will we ever meet again?... NO!!!" Then we have "Black Tears", an interesting song relying on clean singing.

We skip ahead to Infernal with the song "15:36" in which Dan explores the bluesy tendencies of his other band Nightingale. One track that barely gets mentioned is "Hell is Where the Heart is" which takes on the usual sound of Edge of Sanity but more melodic. It just goes to straight to destructive riffing and growls without any keyboards or cleans. And d*mn, the soloing is quite killer! On the other hand, "Hell Written" isn't that strong. It's from the only Edge of Sanity album without Dan, Cryptic. Despite that, it twists into a softer Opeth-like bridge without having to be a 10+ minute epic. "Bleed You Dry" is an amazing track with the last bit of the band's strictly deathly achievements.

And now we get to the "Crimson" epics, starting with the first one. It starts slow and doomy in the first two minutes, then speeds up into the fast melodic main riff. Then it quiets down and builds back up in heaviness back and forth, with incredible doomy black metal-ish tremolo near the 8-minute mark. Then the switch from quite to heavy keeps coming until over the 13-minute point with a sinister melodic march, followed by rapid-fire blast-beats and another groove-ish section before f***ing catchy riffing melody close to the 16-minute mark. Now let's skip ahead through the rest of the greatness until 28 minutes in when a softer verse is abruptly cut by one of the greatest screams I've heard in death metal followed by one of the greatest guitar solos I've heard in death metal. After some more speed, once we reach 32 and a half minutes, there's a layered vocal acapella verse before returning to the suite's main riff and the last bit of the heaviness/melody before ending it all right at 40 minutes (originally). And finally we have the 43-minute "Crimson II". This is too massive for me to describe in words, though the best part for me is all that melody between the 3-minute and 6-minute mark.

Anyone new to Edge of Sanity can check this compilation out and explore the different eras of the band. The die-hard collectors might also want this release too. For me, it's a nice throwback to this band I listened to when I was still heavily into melodeath. A solid way to get into all that Dan Swano and co. have said and done.....

Favorites (one per original album): "Tales", "In the Veins/Darker than Black", "The Masque", "Until Eternity Ends", "Twilight", "Hell is Where the Heart is", "Bleed You Dry", "Crimson", "Crimson II"

I really feel like I'm losing my touch with the more epic and melodic metal bands out there. Despite finally gaining enough full-time interest in Amorphis last year and enjoying many of their releases, the enjoyment didn't last long and I ended up back in square one, likely because I'm still hellbent on the more modern heavy bands. I decided that the best way to revisit this band is through this album, Magic & Mayhem - Tales from the Early Years, a 20th anniversary re-recording of songs from their first 3 albums.

The weird yet cool artwork of a gigantic Moby Dick-sized fish (somehow writing that sounds a bit dirty) is a sign of how monstrous the band's earlier material is that has been re-recorded. The songs from their underground debut The Karelian Isthmus are in greater detail. The band stay faithful to the original songs while adding some more guitar soloing, keyboards, and longer sections. Also enhancing the spirit of those tracks is the band's skillful current vocalist Tomi Joutsen. I enjoy his clean singing as well as his powerful growls that allowed the band to revisit some of their roots when he joined the band. And this helps with the mostly solid songs the band has chosen...

The title track of the compilation, which is also the last track of its original album Tales from the Thousand Lakes, focuses a lot on keyboards while keeping the heavy riffing going, fitting well with the name. "Vulgar Necrolatry" was originally a bonus track from The Karelian Isthmus, stemming from pre-Amorphis band Abhorrence. It is one of the most brutal Amorphis songs ever, fueled up by the typical death metal themes of death and rotting in Hell after completing a life of fear. The more doomy parts a bit flawed, but it's set aside by the heavier faster sections. "Into Hiding" comes to mind as one of the strongest songs in Finnish metal, complete with memorable riffs, pounding drums, solid bass, and groovy keyboards. Those enchanting keyboards are displayed the best in "Black Winter Day", as the heaviness lightens up a bit.

"On Rich and Poor" from Elegy has cool melodies and occasional key changes, but it can get tiring after a while, and the vocals can't really keep up with the melodies at times. "Exile of the Sons of Uisliu" still remains my favorite song of the debut. The references to Irish folklore fit perfectly with the Iron Maiden-infused harmonic leads. "The Castaway" is a more unique song with an Egyptian folk vibe. The awesome catchy "Song of the Troubled One" has the best of Amorphis' earlier melodeath sound. You can't miss the dissonant soloing later on in the song.

"Sign from the North Side" is more mid-paced and the riffing doesn't hook you enough, but it still has a great sense of deathly action. Some more of the memorable riffing comes in "Drowned Maid". Then "Against Widows" levels up the diversity. However, listening to that song again, it seems to be missing something. This is fixed in the grand finale "My Kantele". The sorrowful lyrics really detail the emotional magic from the Finnish instrument in question ("Its strings gathered from torments, and its pegs from other ills. Truly they lie, they talk utter nonsense... So it will not play, will not rejoice at all. Music will not play to please.") The vocals work well with the guitars and keyboards. The track is basically extended into an epic as the heavy version is combined with the acoustic reprise for a memorable climax of harmonic leads. Beautiful!

If we ignore the bizarre stinker cover of The Doors' "Light My Fire", we have a special album made for Amorphis fans curious about what their earlier material would sound like in the new era. The original charm can't be totally restored but they've done well in revisiting the earlier glory. Anyone new to the band can check this album out to see if they feel up to exploring their first 3 albums including what I once thought was the perfect duo Tales from the Thousand Lakes and Elegy. The die-hard collectors might also want this release too. For me, it's a nice throwback to their young wonder years. Not essential enough to fully return to listening to this band, yet something magical....

Favorites (two per original album): "Into Hiding", "Exile of the Sons of Uisliu", "Song of the Troubled One", "Sign from the North Side", "Drowned Maid", "My Kantele"

There are times in the life of any committed metalhead when they discover a release that leaves them truly bewildered as to how it's managed to slip under the radar of the rest of the metal community. When they realise that they've maintained a life-long love affair with a record that others simply don't seem to place as much value on. When they feel like they're privy to a wonderful secret that no one else on Earth is allowed to know. That, ladies & gentlemen, is how I've felt about the 1992 debut album from Swedish death metallers Seance since way back in the early 1990's. You see, at a time when death metal was at its absolute peak, "Fornever Laid To Rest" sat up on a pedestal alongside the true greats of the genre with a pre-internet world not giving me the opportunity to find out that not everyone felt the same way that I did. I gave the album a heavy thrashing for a number of years there & it represented a pretty a big influence on my own band Neuropath as a result too but I often forget about it myself these days due to the fact that no one really talks about it. Looking back on it now though, the magic that "Fornever Laid To Rest" conatins has all come rushing back to me again & left me just as baffled as I was as a youngster back in the early 1990's.

Seance may have been from Sweden but "Fornever Laid To Rest" is nothing like the releases that were exploding out of that country at the time, sounding much more similar to the US scene that I maintained a much stronger affiliation with. It's about as death metal as they come in its approach with the five band members proving themselves to have a great pedigree & being more than capable as musicians. There's a slightly technical edge to Seance's song-writing style however they never really approach the borders that sit between your more conventional death metal & the more expansive tech death crowd. Instead, they use their more complex rhythmic moments to create additional interest which sees them stepping up in class from your average meat-&-potatoes death metal outfit. They're never too clinical in their execution though either. In fact, it could be argued that the performances could have been tightened up a little bit with some extra time & attention & that's probably the album's only weakness. It's funny because all of the individuals seem to be highly capable at their chosen craft however they don't quite bring it together in as tight a fashion as they potentially could have at times with drummer Micke Pettersson (Witchery) being the one that most often seems to find himself most challenged simply to keep up with everyone else. I do think that this element gives "Fornever Laid To Rest" a bit of additional street credibility though, in a similar way to that which Immolation were able to consistently create.

The production is spot on for this style of music as it presents all of the key elements that any self-respecting death metal fan looks out for. Everything is right up in your face with an enormous amount of energy on display but it's never difficult to decipher what's going on, even when Seance really put their foot down. The deep, aggressive vocals of front man Johan Larsson are utterly devastating & remind me of Deicide's Glen Benton at his very best. In fact, I'd suggest that Deicide was likely the primary source of influence for Seance however "Fornever Laid To Rest" is a significantly stronger effort than Deicide's highly regarded "Legion" sophomore album that hit the shelves just the day after Seance's debut in my opinion. I also find myself drawing comparisons to Gorguts' 1991 debut album "Considered Dead" quite regularly & if you combined those two releases then you wouldn't be far from imagining Seance's early sound.

The tracklisting is wonderfully consistent with most of the record managing to qualify for my prestigious Hall of Metal Glory category. The highlights come thick & fast with the title track being very hard to go past for the pick of the bunch. Opener "Who Will Not Be Dead", "The Blessing of Death", "Sin", "Haunter", the Cannibal Corpse-ish "Necronomicon" & closer "Inferna Cabbala" are all stunning in their scope & execution too though so how could I not be awarding an elite score to a release that boasts such an amazing array of elite-level death metal. This record is unapologetically right up my creative alley & it's lost none of its lustre with the passing years. If bands like Malevolent Creation & Monstrosity really float your boat then I'd hazard to suggest that you're in for a real treat with Seance too. Their 1993 follow-up record "Saltrubbed Eyes" may not have been quite as unanimous in its efficient carving up of my musical psyche but it was still a pretty decent death metal record too just quietly & is equally as over-looked. It's a totally uninhibited "Fuck yeah!" from this ol' extreme metal fanatic on this occasion guys.

My initiation to bizarre New York free jazz/grindcore hybrid act PainKiller came through late-night underground metal radio programming back in the early 1990's with one show in particular seeming to take quite a shining to them. At the time I found the material to be grating at best as I had no points of reference for this sort of thing. I found myself to be more than a little bit fascinated though so would end up exploring all of PainKiller's full-lengths over the next few years. Admittedly, I really struggled with all of three of them but I did find myself liking them more with each successive release. Whether that was because I was slowly coming around to the whole concept & expanding my musical repertoire or not is probably a question that needs to be asked but I also wonder whether I ever gave myself the time & attention required to see me gaining any real sort of understanding of what was going on with records like these. You see, they're just so different to anything else I'd heard to the time but I feel a little better equipped to handle an album like PainKiller's 1992 sophomore record "Buried Secrets" now so I thought I'd challenge myself this week.

PainKiller were a side project of avant-garde jazz legend John Zorn of Naked City fame, ambient dub stalwart bass guitarist Bill Laswell & our much beloved blast-beat master Mick Harris who you'll no doubt be familiar with from his time with artists like Napalm Death, Scorn, Extreme Noise Terror & Unseen Terror. Sound like a strange combination? Well, it sure fucking is. The trio go about their craft with a reckless abandon that sees the stylistic approaches changing rapidly between songs but with the one consistent element being Zorn's psychotic free jazz alto saxophone assault. If you've ever heard Naked City before then you'll have some idea of what to expect from Zorn as his contribution is fairly similar with his penchant for making loud, obnoxious honks & squeals taking priority over anything of genuine musical merit. Laswell & Harris provide an assortment of backing tracks that range from very short, lightspeed grindcore blasts to a more measured & heavy sludge metal cesspool to deep, warm & trippy dub excursions. You'll even find some Godfleshy industrial metal on the title track while the lengthy closer & album highlight "The Toll" is nothing a short of drone metal masterpiece. When you combine all of these disparate sounds together it creates an entirely new world that borders on not being music at all at times & that I'd suggest fits best under the avant-garde jazz metal tag. It's certainly a little short-sighted to call "Buried Secrets" a grindcore album because the grind component takes up only a very small percentage of the overall run time.

The quality of the record as a single piece of art is open for interpretation as I find it to be very inconsistent in its ability to successfully keep me engaged but thankfully the highlights come in the form of the longer pieces while the silly novelty tracks only make up a relatively small portion of the release. In fact, I'd suggest that I can do without all of the grindcore & avant-garde metal material because it contains next to no musical value. The true gold to be found on "Buried Secrets" comes in the form of the remainder of the album with the Laswell-inspired dub tracks "Blackhole Dub" & "Black Chamber" containing lush, trance-inducing bass lines, the title track creating scenes of a cold industrial wasteland & "One-Eyed Pessary" taking me down into a pit of angry & abrasive sludge. "The Toll" has struck me with the power of a thousand atom bombs too & leaves me feeling nothing short of devastated at its completion. These moments are both intriguing & musically rewarding, despite the inevitably spasmodic contribution of Zorn, & I've ended up finding myself strangely attracted to the whole experience even if I'm not sure I'll ever feel the need to return to it again.

So where does "Buried Secrets" sit in the grand scheme of PainKiller's back catalogue then? Well, it's a little hard to remember the other releases now given how little time I gave them to win me over back in the day & the fact that my feelings on this record have changed so dramatically since my first experiences with it tell me that they're likely to do the same with 1991's "Guts of a Virgin" debut album & 1994's "Execution Ground" third record. Perhaps it's time that I revisited those two releases so as to give myself a little more of a grounded opinion on the matter. In the meantime though, you're right to feel a little suspicious about "Buried Secrets" as it certainly isn't for everyone but those with an open mind & an adventurous heart may find themselves being taken to some of the more interesting & unusual places known to man.

Altar of Betelgeuze are a finnish band playing doom metal with some death doom tendencies which hardly anyone seems to know about and even less of those who do could give a shit about. This is a great shame because I actually think they are pretty good, or at least I thought their 2014 debut album was. Unfortunately I, along with almost everyone else, missed their sophomore, 2017's Among the Ruins and now we are here, seven years, one pandemic and one european war further down the line with their latest offering, simply titled "Echoes". The album contains seven tracks, most of which fit snugly in the five to six minute bracket, with only the title track providing a longer workout at nine minutes, for a concise forty-two minute overall runtime.

Musically, Altar of Betelgeuze play a recognisable brand of finnish doom metal that is all about the riffs, which are crunchy and generally mid-paced, beefed up by a bass that follows the main thrust of said riffs fairly closely and coupled with efficient and unshowy drumming. Anyone familiar with bands like Lord Vicar, Spiritus Mortis and Cardinal's Folly should quickly be in recognisable teritory here. Where AoB depart is in the vocal department with singer Matias Nastolin, who also provides bass and some guitar, often delivering the lyrics in a deadly death metal barking growl, as opposed to the cleans of those other finnish doomsters I mentioned, unsurprisingly really, as he is also guitarist and vocalist for death metallers Decaying. This leads to them being tagged as death doom, but I think that is misleading because this is actually pretty conventional doom metal that utilises growled vocals rather than genuine death doom. The slightly quicker-paced Embrace the Flames is really the only track that approaches death doom and even then, not really.

Now, while it is certainly true that Echoes doesn't really offer anything new to the scandinavian doom metal canon, it presents some great riffs with a satisfying heaviness and memorability, a vocalist who varies his delivery and is actually an exceedingly capable singer, certainly better than a number of more well-known doom metal singers and a capable bunch of musicians whose playing provides a tightly focussed album of well-written tracks that give off a menacing and ominous atmosphere. So, if you have any love for conventional doom metal of the scandinavian variety then Echoes will definitely give you your fix of thick and heavy riffs. I mean, come on, the title track is actually a bit of a beast and I can already see the album as a whole sitting well up my list of best doom metal releases of the year.

I'm far more of a music listener and a reviewer than a musician and composer. I've been listening to metal music for over a decade now. I've first encountered Wintersun a few years after the release of the long-awaited Time I, and that album I used to think was one of the most epic metal albums I've heard, despite its short "incomplete" length. As I grew older though, I've realized that my true metal heart lies in modern heaviness rather than melodic epicness. I switched to a more mature appealing path for me...

So what does all that mean? It means my enjoyment for Wintersun is still around, but not as much as in the past. This live album, released on the same day as The Forest Seasons, consists of almost the entire Time I album plus a few tracks from their 2004 debut album. Does all this epic diversity still stand out for me well? Let's find out!

The intro of both Time I and Live at Tuska Festival 2013 is the 4-minute "When Time Fades Away". It is an atmospheric Eastern-style instrumental that sounds quite beautiful. The first full song, "Sons of Winter and Stars" is perhaps one of the most epic-sounding songs in all of metal, to guide you through a complex battle of metal and orchestra. At least I used to think about how epic it is, but listening to this now, it still has grand potential, but it's not as put together smoothly as I once thought it was. Still I can't argue with anyone with saying that's the very definition of epic metal. Nowadays, I consider "Land of Snow and Sorrow" my favorite track from Time I with melodic beauty in the riffing and orchestration. It can please metalheads with its swaying melancholy, and the vocals are in full effect especially in a highly memorable chorus.

Finally getting into the songs from the debut, "Winter Madness" once again pushes the boundaries of blackened melodeath that shouldn't be any problem with the heavier metalheads. "Beautiful Death" has the most of the black metal influences here.

The title track of the Time series, "Time" rounds off Time I quite well. Although not as developed in complexity as "Sons of Winter and Stars", this other epic has more stable structure complete with soloing and epic melodies more tolerable for the present-day me. Yeah, I like it more than "Sons of Winter and Stars" today. Then we have the progressive multi-part "Starchild". Although I enjoyed this a lot when I was younger, it now suffers the same problem as Star One's "Starchild" epic; a bit annoying and pompous, and the song ends better than it began. Probably the weakest track here, but still a suitable ending to the show.

Live at Tuska Festival 2013 is a release I don't enjoy as much as I had when I was a young fan of epic metal. The songs from Time I sound quite epic, but they're not that appealing to the more modern/heavy-focused side of me. And this release would've been better if the songs they performed from their debut aren't the weakest ones from there. Still I don't consider any of this a criminal atrocity. This is bombastic symphonic melodeath/power metal for anyone wanting to hear metal at its most epic....

Favorites: "Land of Snow and Sorrow", "Winter Madness", "Time"

There’s absolutely no doubt that my relationship with Swedish death metal gods Entombed was at its peak during the 1991-92 period which was mainly off the back of their 1991 sophomore album “Clandestine” which I regard as being their only genuinely classic release. I first became aware of Entombed through their legendary 1990 debut album “Left Hand Path” & would go on to investigate their earlier demo work shortly afterwards (under both the Nihilist & Entombed monikers) but none of that material had as lasting an impact on me as their more sophisticated & professional second full-length which saw me standing up & paying attention in no uncertain terms. Shortly after the release of “Clandestine” though, we’d receive a couple of short EP’s in quick succession. One was the “Crawl” EP which featured Nirvana 2002 vocalist Orvar Safstrom behind the mike. It was a decent enough record but wasn’t quite as strong as I’d hoped. 1992’s “Stranger Aeons” EP was a more lucrative undertaking for me though as it sounded very much like “Clandestine”. I picked it up as a part of the Earache Records “Gods of Grind” compilation which also included EP’s from Cathedral, Carcass & Confessor.

The ”Stranger Aeons” EP is a short three-song affair that includes one track taken from the “Clandestine” album (i.e. the title track) as well as two new songs that were recorded in a separate single-night session at Sunlight Studios by just vocalist/drummer Nicke Anderson & guitarist/bassist Ulf Cederlund. I wouldn’t say that “Stranger Aeons” is one of the true classics from “Clandestine” but it’s certainly a very solid death metal tune in its own right & doesn’t disappoint here either. The other two songs sound very similar in style & benefit from maintaining a similar vocal delivery too given that Anderson continues to deliver his barking style of death growl here. Nicke’s vocal performance on “Clandestine” has always been highly divisive but I sit firmly on the side that favours him over the much loved L-G Petrov who would return the fold shortly afterwards.

The production job on all three tracks is excellent & the two sessions don’t sound noticeably different which allows “Dusk” & “Shreds of Flesh” (a re-recording of a track from Entombed’s 1989 “But Life Goes On” demo tape) a level of continuity with the title track. I simply love Nicke’s drum sound & performance here & he’s always been the true focal point of Entombed for mine. The crunchy guitar tone is quite possibly the perfect example of the Swedish BOSS HM-2 Heavy Metal pedal sound too. There’s absolutely no drop-off in quality from the title track to “Dusk” & I feel it would have fit into “Clandestine” just fine while “Shreds of Flesh” is clearly the weaker of the three songs but is given some additional appeal by the fresh coat of paint.

“Stranger Aeons” may feel like a pretty insignificant release given the limited scope & duration but it’s interesting that I find it to offer me more enjoyment than I receive from any other Entombed release outside of “Clandestine”. It’s simply more consistent in ticking my musical boxes & it frustrates me a bit that the band elected to move away from this sound when they’d only just reached their creative peak. I think any diehard fan of Swedish death metal bands like Dismember, Grave or Carnage owes it to themselves to explore it.

The story of Wintersun is a legendary one. After this stunning self-titled debut album, the founder of the band, Jari Mäenpää decided to make an album so epic and complex that it can be considered the "Chinese Democracy" of epic metal in terms of development. And while the first part Time I was released in 2012, it wasn't until this year (2024) that Time II is finally finished and will be released later this year (2024), plus a massive boxset that includes demos for a planned multi-album series. And it shall continue this diverse blend of the power metal of Rhapsody of Fire, the viking metal of Bathory, the melodeath of Children of Bodom, and the folk metal of Equilibrium!

As ambitious as this blend sounds, it doesn't have true originality. I still enjoy this, don't get me wrong, but as I grow older and my music taste matures, the spark from these kinds of bands is long gone from me, and it is a bit overwhelming hearing so many elements in one plate that I once enjoyed 10 years before this review. Despite the lack of coherence, there's still brilliant creativity. The epic narratives and melodeath rage work well in their respective places when they don't clash heavily into each other.

I like how the song lengths ascend from the shortest to the longest throughout the album, starting with the short yet heavily diverse "Beyond the Dark Sun". There's so much going on in just two and a half minutes in contrast to their longer songs lasting more than 5 minutes. The power metal riffing, neoclassical keyboards, epic narration, deathly vocals, and folky atmosphere are all in here! It's so catchy and will get you prepared for this solid journey that would end with a 10-minute epic. Next song "Winter Madness" once again pushes the boundaries of blackened melodeath that shouldn't be any problem with the heavier metalheads.

Taking a break from the aggression is "Sleeping Stars" which has slower beauty. Kicking off "Battle Against Time" is a two-minute blasting intro. The song itself is suitable for an epic winter battle. "Death and the Healing" shines with melancholic guitar melody in an epic ballad, once again showing a different side of the band as opposed to the fast fury of most of the previous songs.

Then we have the progressive multi-part "Starchild". Although I enjoyed this a lot when I was younger, it now suffers the same problem as Star One's "Starchild" epic; a bit annoying and pompous, and the song ends better than it began. Probably the weakest track here, but strong enough to maintain the 4-star rating for this album. "Beautiful Death" has the most of the black metal influences here. The journey finally reaches its climax in the exceptional "Sadness and Hate" with epic majesty in the music and lyrics. This solidifies the album following the perfect metal storm of beginning and ending with the best tracks. And there are more epics like this to come in subsequent albums...

All in all, there's so much ambitious creativity in this album, but this epicness I don't enjoy as much as I did when I was a young teen due to how overwhelming I find some passages nowadays. As catchy as some songs can be, they could've been better structured. I just hope the time spent on completing the Time series will all be worth it. I'm sure anyone who enjoys the epic power/melodeath/folk metal of Alestorm, Battlelore, and Eluveitie will dig this as much as I did in the past but much more than I do now....

Favorites: "Beyond the Dark Sun", "Battle Against Time", "Death and the Healing", "Sadness and Hate"

People seem to start their journey through the music of Becoming the Archetype with their debut album Terminate Damnation. I, on the other hand, have just started with their second album The Physics of Fire that covers a progressive melodeath sound. And this might just be a newfound favorite of mine!

As you can hear in The Physics of Fire, the band can really put their talents forward and show what they do best. Around then, the band entered the deathly progressive metal realms where Opeth is the ruler, and BTA have something different that is their metalcore influences. Fast technical soloing sears in grace, played by then-lead guitarist Alex Snow. Count Seth Hecox has some pounding guitar rhythms. Bassist/vocalist Jason Wisdom is steady on his unique vocals. Brett Duckett keeps his drumming pace tight.

The drumming already crashes in with the crushing opening track "Epoch of War". Interestingly, it is considered the 3rd part of the album's title suite. "Immolation" has pretty great cleans. The higher-quality "Autopsy" (second track in a row to have the same name as a death metal band) is my favorite here. The lyrics seem to follow the simple yet intriguing Christian theme of faith vs. fire. Although I'm not Christian, those kinds of lyrics are the best for me. "The Great Fall" is the actual first part of the title suite, and it's up to the listeners to decipher the lyrical story based on the arrangement of parts. That's the kind of challenge I like!

"Nocturne" is a nice instrumental intermission. Even when starting with piano and clean guitar, the heaviness that follows can still show the album's sound that combines the epic melodeath of Insomnium and Eternal Tears of Sorrow with the modern progressiveness of Tesseract and The Human Abstract. "The Monolith" has a nice clean jazzy guitar island in the sea of metal. My only major complaint for this song and the entire album is how that clean section abruptly switches back to usual hardcore progressive death sound without a proper warning. I really enjoy hearing a lot of ideas. There's more prominent keyboard usage in "Construct and Collapse", particularly in the intro. The riffing shines the most in "Endure" despite the song's short length.

"Fire Made Flesh", the actual second part of the title suite, has a bit of broken flow in the keyboards, but it still fits better when you hear piano instead of synths. "Second Death" is an excellent track with great potential in the vocals, working well with the brief turn into gothic doom in the intro. The 4th and final part of the title suite, "The Balance of Eternity" perfectly summarizes the lyrical theme of faith vs. fire, connecting well with this progressive epic to bring this glorious offering to a fantastic close.

Now this is the kind of metal sound I need in my life. And it's more than one sound, it's a sound of many sounds! Each song is unique in their own way, thereby proving the amazing talents these guys have. Yet another band has proven that Christian extreme metal is a thing. A fascinating heavy experience!

Favorites: "Autopsy", "The Great Fall", "Nocturne", "Endure", "Second Death", "The Balance of Eternity"

It's no mistake that Hatebreeder (not to be confused with metal/hardcore band Hatebreed) is considered a shining breakthrough for Children of Bodom. Their mighty blend of melodeath and power metal has been put together in place after the incoherent building blocks of their debut Something Wild. That's the kind of sound I enjoyed when I was younger and up to revisiting. The intensity and variation are arranged together for the classic sound of Bodom!

Some might say that the melody doesn't reach its full height until Follow the Reaper, and while that's true, Hatebreeder greatly displays the well-structured interplay of guitars and synths. The devastating drumming and distorted guitars are in almost perfect form for the album's uniqueness.

Sparks fly in rapid fire with "Warheart", a chaotic blast of an opening track that already solidifies where the band stand in the Finnish metal throne alongside Nightwish. "Silent Night, Bodom Night" has a riff that sounds almost like something from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, and the rest of the song is so distinctly unique. The title track is actually a bit restrained in the vocals and keyboards. Nonetheless, the keyboard ambience and soloing are what makes this sound so unique.

The guitars and keyboards perfectly duel with each other in "Bed of Razors". It's the most melodic song here to get you hooked from the keyboard intro to the catchy chorus, and even some cool surprises in the verses. The melodic instruments really take the spotlight, especially when the keyboard has orchestra-like ambience and killer soloing. Perhaps one of the most memorable songs here, and one I still remember for so long! "Towards Dead End" has an Eastern vibe in the guitars and keyboards, and towards the end, a stroll through an oriental garden turns into a magical battle during the soloing duel. I would've considered "Black Widow" perfect if not for the out-of-nowhere F-bomb.

Then we have the thrashy "Wrath Within", hinting at the band's later direction. The band's own theme "Children of Bodom", re-recorded from an earlier single, has some of the most exciting soloing from this album and band. The harpsichord leading the guitar melody might remind some of King Diamond before unleashing some more complex hooks. Anyone new to this kind of sound needs to concentrate well to hear all the different elements, so you can enjoy it all at its fullest. The melodic "Downfall" shall be appreciated as kick-starting the band's atmospheric side that they had displayed ever since. The deluxe edition comes with two covers, the first being "No Commands" by Stone, a band featuring later Bodom guitarist Roope Latvala. The cover of Iron Maiden's "Aces High" is quite fun, despite the vocals sounding unfitting.

Hatebreeder is a fun album to revisit in an attempt to bring back a bit of melodeath/power metal back into my taste. I can probably also do the same with Follow the Reaper sometime in the future. For now, let's appreciate this innovative addition to the melodeath realm from this band led by the late great Alexi Laiho! RIP

Favorites: "Warheart", "Silent Night, Bodom Night", "Bed of Razors", "Children of Bodom", "Downfall", "Aces High" (Iron Maiden cover)

Formed in 1996 as Eve of Mourning and fast approaching three decades of existence, Grey Skies Fallen are another one of a plethora of seriously underrated doom metal bands. None of the New York four-piece's six albums have even got to the modest heights of 100 ratings here on RYM, which is a great shame as these are clearly a talented bunch of musicians who deserve more recognition.

The band's approach to songwriting is quite progressive, with a number of shifts in tone during each track which lends them a story-telling, narrative feel. They don't stick to out and out doom metal, nor do they focus on just one style, but rather draw together strands of death doom, epic doom, conventional doom, gothic metal and progressive metal into grand, epic soundscapes that are imbued with an imperial bombast, yet are also tinged with melancholy and regret, like visiting the ruins of a once mighty empire, whose glory days are a distant memory. As well as a deft skill for writing a certain kind of bombastic doom metal, Grey Skies Fallen are also extremely adept performers, with the band sounding exceedingly tight. Guitarist Rick Habeeb also provides vocals and has a fine voice, with convincing deathly growls as well as really nice, soaring cleans and is never left wanting. Interestingly he is also vocalist with grindcore crew Buckshot Facelift, illustrating just how versatile a singer he really is.

The doomy riffs display a nice range of variety from the gloomily gothic a la My Dying Bride to the bombastic and epic, straight out of Rich Walker's Solstice song book, and all points in between. In fact, I would suggest Rich is quite the influence for Grey Skies Fallen because a sizeable proportion of the soloing sounds like it is delivered by guitarists well-acquainted with Solstice's New Dark Age album. In fact the more I listen to this, the stronger the comparison with New Dark Age grows, with even the production sound being similar and anyone who knows my view on NDA knows that is definitely a good thing in my eyes (or ears, as the case may be). I think this is an album that benefits from repeated listens and a cursory exploration may fail to unpeel it's layers, leaving the listener unfulfilled, but time getting to know it is time well-spent as I found it getting better every time I returned to it. I would also suggest listening to it on a decent set-up as I suspect a phone speaker almost certainly won't do it justice.

Ultimately Grey Skies Fallen are superbly talented musicians and songwriters who have languished in obscurity for far too long and Molded By Broken Hands is a high quality doom metal release that deserves a far wider audience than it is likely to garner.

A band called Acid Mammoth and an album titled Supersonic Megafauna Collision will probably hold very few surprises for anyone who has even remotely been paying attention to the metal scene over the last few years. Yes, predictably enough, these Greeks play super-heavy stoner doom metal with psych-inflected guitar solos and washed-out vocals. Their adherence to the cliches of the genre will, I'm sure, have people asking, "well how many Acid Mammoth albums does anyone actually need?" In truth, if you aren't too sold on this style of doom then one is probably sufficient, but as someone who has always embraced psychedelia and stoner culture, I genuinely enjoy Acid Mammoth's unpretentious approach to the genre and usually snap up anything they issue.

Guitarist / vocalist Chris Babalis Jr. has a quite high-pitched, nasal singing style which sounds like a mix of Never Say Die-era Ozzy and Tobias Forge of Ghost and as such may not be to everyone's taste I suppose, but for me it is perfectly adequate and suits this style of psych-stoner doom well enough. The riffs are thick and fuzzy, groove-laden monsters with plenty of "oomph" that instill a stoned-out hypnoticism via repetition and provide the framework upon which the vocals and guitar solos hang. The rhythm section provide solid support for the riffs with solid, capable and decidedly unflashy work. Song titles like Fuzzorgasm (Keep On Screaming), Atomic Shaman and Tusko's Last Trip further illustrate where the band are coming from, with drugs, the occult and outer space providing the lyrical content for all the stoned-out madness.

It really is very simple, if you dislike bands like Electric Wizard and Cathedral then chances are you won't connect with Acid Mammoth either, but the converse is also true, so you pays your money anf you makes your choice. Me, I'm all in with the tripping pachyderm.

I gotta say, this is one of the most melodic melodeath albums I've heard, and I still think so after not hearing this album for a few years. Fans of the band's earlier heavier melodeath might put it down, but this self-titled 3rd album is the transition between their heavier melodeath and the experimental alt-metal of their subsequent albums...

In other words, this album isn't one you can consider purely melodeath. It's a h*ll of a lot more than that! You can hear those deathly growls and screams, while a lot more clean singing has entered the picture. And with riffing that's much more melodic than dissonant, it marks the beginning of their alt-metal side. Though if you wish to hear just full-on melodeath, it covers a lot of the second half. By letting your mind open up a bit, you can find a f***-ton of greatness hidden in the shadows.

The first track "Queen of Blades" is a great start as it soars through the metal riffing and anthemic choruses. "The Great Pretender" can almost be consider death 'n' roll, but it sounds closer to me like one of the wackier PAIN tracks without any industrial tendencies. Next up, "Shattered Wings" is a smooth alt-metal song with a melodic solo.

"Reload" might remind some of that Metallica album Reload in the rock-on riffing, though the higher screaming and singing might say otherwise. Continuing the alt-metal direction is "Out of Our Minds" with technical guitar fiddling in the intro that then leads to a softer verse. It's a better and listenable song in the alt-metal side. "Deeper Down" once again takes things further into the alt-metal of Dir En Grey and Waltari, and to a lesser extent, Code Orange and Fear Factory de-industrialized. After that, we have "Revolution of Two", a true melodeath anthem that also includes a clean chorus and atmospheric bridge.

"Roadkill" is another killer rocker, though a bit tiring at this point. The two-minute "Pigf***er" has the most aggression here and the shortest length too. The earlier Avatar fans might dig the sh*t out of that one. The perfect melodeath finale is the 8-minute epic "Lullaby (Death All Over)". It is my favorite song in this album and a glorious conclusion to the band's earlier melodeath era.

So the music in Avatar's self-titled 3rd album marks the beginning of the end of their pure melodeath years. The album is quite great, though a few songs could have some kinks worked out here and there. As long as death metal doesn't fully plague your mind, this release is worth good listening and appreciation....

Favorites: "Queen of Blades", "Shattered Wings", "Out of Our Minds", "Revolution of Two", "Lullaby (Death All Over)"

I like this, I don't love it. I would give it a 3.75, but I'll round up for prosperity. This is the most "prog" of the sludge that I've listened to and I enjoy that. It's also has a bit of an alternative metal vibe at times as well with guitars that remind me of Tool or Deftones. I'm trying to ease up on my bias against sludge and albums like this help with that. It's still not a ride I want to take all the time, but i'm glad I rode it once. The instrumental bits where it does edge on the side of sludgier riffs are still boring to me especially the last song "The Reptilian Brain" where it does what you think of with sludge for 16:20. But many of the songs before that go the prog route and are much more enjoyable. Like the intro song "Primodorial Soup" is a decent short instrumental that works but also doesn't do the best job of telling where the album is going for me but is a pretty average sludge intro that is almost every album that I've heard on this journey to date. The middle is where it's interesting, but still hits everything expected of sludge.

If you don't fit into two unique categories of extreme metal fan then you're probably a little unlikely to have heard much of South Australia's Mortification. The first would you see being a committed member of the Christian faith which isn't all that common in the metal community, at least not in my homeland. The second would see you sporting an Australian passport which I'm lucky enough to be able to boast. You see, Adelaide-based death metallers Mortification have pretty much built their music careers around the extraordinary contradiction that sees them being influenced by some of the most evil artists known to man but then openly pushing the exact opposite lyrical agenda. I've never had any time for organized religion as a rule but the very fact that Mortification were a local band who appeared to be building somewhat of a reputation for themselves on a global scale saw me inclined to check them out back in the early 1990's & I'd end up investigating all of their first four full-length releases before giving them a miss for good following 1994's awful "Blood World" album. Mortification seem to have released about a kazillion records since that time with approximately zero people seeming to give a shit so the concept of addressing my gaps in their back catalogue has never even crossed my mind but 1992's "Scrolls of the Megilloth" was certainly my favourite of the releases I do know & it's time to see how it's held up over the decades since I last visited it.

Mortification's 1991 self-titled debut album wasn't too bad an Aussie death/thrash record actually & I quite enjoyed spinning it a few times back in the day. The band were signed to a US Christian metal label called Intense Records at that time & would stay with them for the follow-up album "Scrolls of the Megilloth" which saw the light of day a year later. "Scrolls of the Megilloth" saw Mortification dropping most of the underlying thrash metal influences that perpetuated the debut with their second album being more inclined to stay in its death metal lane the majority of the time. I wouldn't suggest that "Scrolls of the Megilloth" offers anything drastically different to any other death metal release of its era but it doesn't sound exactly like anyone in particular either with the clear defining factor (& arguably the reason that any of you have even heard of Mortification before) being the use of blatantly Christian lyrical themes. Other than that element though, one could mistake "Scrolls of the Megilloth" for yet another run-of-the-mill death metal record, although it isn't a bad one it has to be said.

The elephant in the room with a record like this one is the production job as it's far from ideal. The awful rhythm guitar tone is the main culprit & gives the whole release a DIY feel. The more mid-paced material is where it's the most difficult to overcome with the faster or doomier passages allowing the flaw a little more leniency. Drummer Jayson Sherlock (Horde/Paramæcium/Deliverance) sports some pretty decent blast-beats which add a lot to the record in my opinion. I'd suggest that he'd spent a fair amount of time worshipping at the altar of Morbid Angel legend drum god Pete Sandoval actually because he gives the riffs a similar feel to the more brutal end of that band's early work. Band leader & front man Steve Rowe's bass guitar is very easy decipherable throughout which isn't always my preference during the more brutal parts but he proves himself to be more than capable nonetheless. He also possesses a pretty guttural death grunt for a God-fearing Christian too just quietly, a gift that he takes full advantage of in delivering his much less imposing message.

The tracklisting is a little up & down to be fair. It doesn't really get going until the middle of the album with the one-two punch of the title track & "Death Requiem" seeing my ears pricking up significantly & lengthy doom/death closer "Ancient Prophesy" allowing things to be closed out in very solid fashion too. There are a couple of clear duds included too though with "Raise The Chalice" & "Inflamed" both falling short of the mark (particularly the former) while the rest of the material is mildly enjoyable, if fairly uneventful, which sees me finishing up with a fairly middling impression of the record overall. There's no doubt that it offers some very solid moments but can't produce them consistently enough to see me wanting to make return visits in the future. Is it Mortification's best record? Well, from those that I'm acquainted with I'd say so but there's a massive wealth of material that I'm never likely to traverse, at least not in this lifetime. Perhaps some of our Christian members might feel the urge to scale that mountain at some point so that they can enlighten us as to its true value. In the meantime though, I'd suggest that "Scrolls of the Megilloth" is unlikely to repulse too many death metal fans, particularly those that get into the religious themes of early 90's Living Sacrifice, the fairly straight-forward old-school death metal of Florida's Massacre or some of the more prominent Australian death metal acts of the time like Canberra's Armoured Angel.

Finnish death metallers Amorphis first came to my attention when I borrowed a cassette copy of their debut album "The Karelian Isthmus" from Neuropath front man Mark Wangmann back in early 1993. I absolutely loved the cover artwork which drew me in & simply commanded me to check out what this brand new band was all about. I was a massive death metal fan at the time (& still are of course) so I was hungrily lapping up anything & everything that I could find in that space but I think it's fair to say that "The Karelian Isthmus" commanded a level of patience from me as it sounds a little bit different to most of the other material I was listening to at the time. Thankfully though, that patience would be rewarded & I'd eventually come around to Amorphis' more melody-centric brand of death metal. The band would blow up in a major way off the back of their 1994 sophomore album "Tales From the Thousand Lakes" shortly afterwards & my brother Ben would become deeply involved with them at the time so they were never far from my ears but "The Karelian Isthmus" seems to have been forced into the annuls of time for the most part, overawed by the fandom around it's more illustrious follow-up. My taste profile has drifted further away from the melodic death metal subgenre over the years though so I've often wondered whether Amorphis' debut might have reduced the gap between itself & the two records that followed it.

While "The Karelian Isthmus" is generally thought of as a more traditional death metal record when compared to later material, I immediately found myself questioning that position upon it hitting my ears for the first time in decades. There's much more to Amorphis' debut than being yet another Scandinavian death metal record. There's already a clear focus on melody that we'd rarely seen in the underground death metal community to the time with the Swedish melodeath explosion still yet to eventuate. In fact, I'd go so far as to claim that "The Karelian Isthmus" is a transitional record that saw Amorphis sitting midway between the more conventional death metal of their disappointing 1991 "Disment of Soul " demo & very solid retrospectively-released "Privilege of Evil" E.P. (originally recorded in 1991 too) & the more obviously melodic "Tales From the Thousand Lakes" with a dual tag of death metal & melodic death metal seeming far more appropriate to me than simply leaving the album standing out like a sore thumb next to the Morbid Angel's & Obituary's. In many respects "The Karelian Isthmus" sits right in a three-way battle between the Swedish death metal sound of Entombed, the early developments in the melodic death metal scene & the doom/death of the Peaceville Three with the doom metal elements being quite regular but never feeling like they're deserving of equal standing with the first two tags. One of the best tracks on the record is a pure doom/death outing though in the excellent "The Lost Name of God" which seems to obviously draw upon Anathema's early recordings for inspiration, particularly their legendary anthem to general despondency "They Die".

The vocals of front man Tomi Koivusaari (Abhorrence/Ajattara) were pretty par for the course for lesser-known death metal outfits of the time & are probably the weakest link for Amorphis here as they're not very interesting to be honest. I also prefer the slower, doomier & more atmospheric moments more than the faster Swedish-inspired stuff which sounds a little bouncy for my taste. "The Pilgrimage" is a really good example of when Amorphis get things right & is the best of the death metal numbers for mine. There are not any weak tracks included here though which is was a big positive in Amorphis' chances of winning me over with time. The cheesier numbers that cancelled out some of the clear highlights on later albums are nowhere to be found here & this has seen the debut simply feeling a little more consistent in its appeal to my personal taste profile. 

You know what? I've never rated "Tales From the Thousand Lakes" as highly as most seem to do. It's always felt like a fairly original record that I mildly enjoy more than one that is vital in my metal journey. I actually rate 2015's "Under the Red Cloud" over it these days to be honest but this week's experiences with "The Karelian Isthmus" have surprisingly seen me placing it above both. I still think 1996's "Elegy" might be Amorphis' best work but it's been so long since I've heard it now that I might need to revisit it in order to firm up that suspicion. In the meantime though, "The Karelian Isthmus" has certainly hit a few runs in the more melodic/atmospheric Finnish death metal space that the earlier efforts from bands like Sentenced played in. Early Swedish death metal acts like Tiamat & Gorement also come to mind as decent points of reference.

Florida death metal heavy-weights Obituary played a very strong role in not only my conversion from thrash metal to the more extreme death metal genre in 1989 but also in the consolidation of extreme metal as my life-long obsession. They did so off the back of their first three albums which are generally regarded as being Obituary's creative peak & one that they've consistently attempted to emulate over the many years since. I purchased 1989's "Slowly We Rot" on cassette shortly after discovering the band & found it be a very solid death metal release indeed, if one that saw them still developing their signature sound with the thrash influences of their earlier days still being well in effect. 1990's "Cause of Death" sophomore album (once again purchased on cassette) utterly blew me away though & I still place it up on a pedestal with the true greats of the genre. Hired gun guitar virtuoso James Murphy had made a significant contribution to Obituary's sound & the focus on a  doomier & more controlled sound had been nothing short of a master stroke. Legendary front man John Tardy's vocals had become as monstrous as we've heard in metal music & are still the benchmark for me personally. So, when 1992's "The End Complete" third album rolled around I was well & truly onboard, hook, line & sinker. I purchased the CD on the day of release & excitedly raced home to whack it into my player, buoyed by the magnificently glossy cover artwork & the most intense marketing campaign death metal had seen to the time. I loved what I heard too just quietly, certainly not as much as "Cause of Death" but I felt that it was a better record than "Slowly We Rot" at the time. My affiliations with the debut album have only grown over the years though so I feel that it's a good time to see where "The End Complete" fits into the grand scheme of Obituary's back catalogue.

"The End Complete" showcases a band that absolutely knew their sound & has filed it down to a sharp point by this stage of their recording careers. James Murphy had moved on with "Slowly We Rot" lead guitarist Allen West having returned to the band, a prospect that I wasn't so keen on given how just much of a difference Murphy had made on "Cause of Death". I thought of West as a fairly limited whammy-bar bandit at the time too so I was prepared for a significant drop in quality in the solos department. I certainly got it too but listening back now it seems to me that West had taken some influence from Murphy's contribution & made a genuine attempt at some more melodic lead work which is most welcome. The rest of the band are completely united in their quest for the chunkiest & most memorable death metal riffs imaginable though, keeping things very simple in order for maximum ear-worm potential. It works a treat too, particularly when they stay in the slow-to-mid tempo range. The faster, bouncier riffs lose a little bit of that deathly atmosphere in my opinion but it's John Tardy that's predictably the star of the show with his incredible growl being both instantly recognizable & unanimously effective. I became nothing short of obsessed with him during these early death metal years & "The End Complete" only accentuated that obsession.

The production job on "The End Complete" is a major factor in one's enjoyment of the album. There'd obviously been a bit of investment in Obituary by their label R/C Records which was clearly intended to make them into the biggest death metal band in the world & it worked for a period too it has to be said. Trevor Peres' rhythm guitars are so well entwined with the rhythm section of bassist Frank Watkins & drummer Donald Tardy that it's hard to even think of them as separate individuals. They create a thick, dense wall of Celtic Frost-inspired grooves that you'll struggle to keep your head from banging along to. I'm a really big fan of the thick, heavily down-tuned, humming guitar tone but, listening back with modern-day ears, I'm a little skeptical about the brighter drum sound, particularly the light-weight snare drum which sounds very similar to a small stick being broken in half & isn't nearly heavy enough to match the chunky darkness being drawn upon by the stringsmen. Overall though, "The End Complete" presented Obituary as one of the classier acts in a scene that was just about to peak.

The tracklisting on "The End Complete" is extremely consistent with nothing that dips below a very solid level. It doesn't possess the continuous wall of classics that confronted me when I first heard "Cause of Death" though so it took a few listens to come to terms with that & accept that this simply wasn't going to be as classic a record. There are, however, a few classic tracks amongst this lot though with "Dead Silence", "Corrosive" & the dark majesty of closer "Rotting Ways" playing a major role in my teenage years & ensuring that they're very unlikely to ever be forgotten. The best moments unanimously appear when Obituary keep things in the lower end of the tempo band as they highlight that wonderful graveyard atmosphere that the band played such a huge part in creating in the first place. The faster tracks simply aren't capable of achieving those sorts of feelings & a large part of that is due to the fact that John Tardy's maniacal howls are far better suited to the slower material.

I think some people are a little too hard on "The End Complete" at times, perhaps spending too much time comparing it to its older sibling rather than judging it on its own merit. I still feel that it's a better record than Obituary's widely acclaimed debut album "Slowly We Rot" but not by as big a margin as I once would have stated. They're both high-quality & seriously enjoyable death metal records that may pale in comparison to the looming darkness between them but shouldn't be discounted as a result. Fans of bands like Autopsy, Jungle Rot & Asphyx will no doubt appreciate this material as it presents a similarly doomy graveyard soundtrack to that which those bands have built their craft on & does it with a professionalism that those acts have rarely achieved (or even wanted to to be fair). I have to admit that I'm relieved by the result of this revisit as it's proven to me that my childhood feelings were well justified & that the album still has plenty to offer the modern-day death metal crowd.

Power metal has always been the ginger-haired stepchild of metal. It’s cheesy, and full of corny lyrics about mythical lands and beings going on wondrous adventures. Lame, right? But occasionally, a band comes along who does away with the speed-metal roots and wailing vocals of the genre, and releases something with a bit more depth and substance.

Enter Kamelot, with their fifth studio album, 2001’s ‘Karma’, the group have really hit their stride, with a refined sound and more polished song writing, this is where the band truly begin a streak of strong releases that establishes them as one of symphonic metals true champions.

Building upon what they’d started with 1999’s ‘The Forth Legacy’, ‘Karma’ has a very rich sound that gives the band an amazingly fantastical feel. Brimming with lavish orchestrations and exotic musical influences, Kamelot have slowly stepped away from the medieval themes of past albums and gone for a more varied, worldly sound, and it works well with their upbeat and energetic performances. Special mention must go to vocalist Roy Khan, who’s incredible voice works very well with the music and gives it a warm and wholesome sound.

With highlights such as ‘Forever’, ‘Across the Highlands’, ‘Wings of Despair’, all three parts of a trilogy entitled ‘Elizabeth’, and the beautifully emotional ‘Don’t You Cry’, it’s clear that here is a band who, after a few albums tweaking their sound, have finally found their identity and established a style befitting a band named after the home of the legendary King Arthur. Kamelot may not be for everyone’s tastes, but if you’re okay with a bit of fantasy and majesty in your music, then this is definitely worth checking out.

Who would have ever imagined when Fozzy released their debut album back in 2000, that they'd still be going strong in 2017? It's crazy, right? They're called "Fozzy", and the main attraction of the band is that they're fronted by professional wrestling legend Chris Jericho. But amazingly, not only have the band stood the test of time and persevered, but with 2017's 'Judas', their seventh studio release, they've continued to ride a wave of upwards momentum that shows no sign of slowing down.

Continuing where they left off with previous release 'Do You Wanna Start a War', 'Judas' is full of massive-sounding, stadium rock anthems. The band really started to find their niche when they strayed from their original, more metal-oriented sound, and focused on a more simplified rock-based style, which isn't lacking in huge, sing-along choruses and plenty of keyboard/electronic elements for an added touch.

Vocalist Chris Jericho (the greatest of all time, you stupid idiot!) has really come into his own, and his abilities as a singer, and especially as a performer, have really helped elevate Fozzy over the years. Even more so when backed by Rich Wards thunderous guitar riffs, which has one of the best tones in rock today! While the members of the band have certainly never been known for their virtuoso musical prowess, it's the more stripped down and simplified approach they've taken over the years that has accentuated their strengths as songwriters.

Standout songs include the title track (which has gone on to become one of Fozzy's biggest and highest-charting singles), 'Drinking With Jesus', 'Elevator', 'Three Days in Jail', and the incredibly catchy and infectious 'Burn Me Out', which perfectly encapsulates the essence of what Rich Ward jokingly referred to as "detuned dance music".

'Judas' is a fantastic album, and demonstrates a band who, like a fine wine, improve with age. The amazing thing is, Fozzy haven't even peaked yet.

I've always had a real soft spot for the more brutal end of thrash metal. That's really where my extreme metal roots lie & it's a sound that appears to have discovered a bit of a revival in recent years. One of the earlier exponents of the sound was New Orleans' Exhorder whose 1990 debut album "Slaughter in the Vatican" made some pretty big waves in this early 90's teenager's Walkman at the time. The band's 1992 sophomore record "The Law" has often been overlooked though, perhaps struggling a little to overcome the links to Pantera & the groove metal genre. I was very quick to pick up on "The Law" & have always thought of it as another excellent Exhorder thrash record with its brutal production job giving it something of a differentiator from the crowd. It certainly didn't see Exhorder following the trend for thrashers to move into a grungier & more commercial sound at the time either. I've been looking forward to revisiting "The Law" for quite some time now & have blasted the shit out of my ear drums on the way to work this week. The album has lost none of its zest so let's take a look at it in a little more detail.

"The Law" is a record that simply sounds like no other. In fact, it's instantly identifiable from its ball-tearing guitar tone alone with the searing metallic high-end threatening to sheer your eye drums in two & leave you with ringing ears for a week (like I have right now actually). When these guys hit on a huge thrash, groove or sludge metal riff it's accentuated ten-fold by the extreme amount of metal that's been genetically infused into that guitar tone & I for one applaud them for it. It may pound the listener into submission at times but it also gives me a visceral, primal reaction that sees me returning to it time & time again. If I had to guess I'd suggest that Exhorder were aiming to get close to Exodus' ultra-crunchy tone from records like 1989's "Fabulous Disaster" or 1990's "Impact is Imminent" but things got a little out of hand & they just decided to run with it. Thank goodness they did because it's resulted in one of the most metal records you'll find.

"The Law" does sound a little different to "Slaughter in the Vatican" from a stylistic point of view too though. It's less of a balls-to-the-wall thrasher with more variety in the tempo department. When these boys thrash out they do it with a hell-for-leather reckless abandon that few can keep up with but when they slow things down they can manage to muster some of the most immense riffs from the bowels of Hell. Just look at the outro of opening track "Soul Search Me" for example! How can that riff be beaten?? Answer: It simply can't & it's these moments when the influence on Pantera's sound can be seen as plain as day. Vocalist Kyle Thomas sounds exactly like Phil Anselmo for the most part with his vicious delivery being the perfect foil for the aggressive instrumentation around him. Despite the uniqueness of the guitar tone, you can easily see the parallels with Dimebag Darrell's as they both accentuate the power of the riff in a magical way. And those devastating groove riffs often see the two bands running alongside each other in parallel too. Exhorder are far more consistently fast & thrashy though & aren't tarnished by the same yobbo-isms that Pantera's less sophisticated work has been.

The tracklisting kicks off in splendid fashion & never lets up for the entire 39-minute duration in a super-consistent display of savage metal worship. The incredible "Unforgiven" & the blistering title track were genuine classics in my teenage years but the other seven songs are nothing to scoff at either. Even the sludgier rendition of Black Sabbath's "Into The Void" is a welcome addition in that it not only suits Exhorder's ability to maximize the impact of a big groovy riff but it also takes the original to a slightly darker & more imposing place. Almost every track contains stellar riffs that'll see you struggling to sit still while Thomas grabs the back of your head & progressively smashes your face into the table or seat in front of you. Boy, these guys must have been something to behold in a live environment & I once again find myself reaching for Exodus as a point of comparison. On the negative side, I have no doubt that the iconic guitar tone would tend to make things sound a little samey if you're not committed to the cause. Thankfully, I'm totally onboard with what Exhorder are dishing out though so I've never felt that "The Law" suffered from that affliction.

Now for the elephant in the room i.e. the whole groove metal thing. Look... there's no doubt that "The Law" is a true showcase of where the rumours that their mates Pantera ripped off their sound come from. It's fucking obvious to be honest but that doesn't make "The Law" a groove metal release overall in my opinion. It's far too fast, thrashy & aggressive for that with the groove metal riffs being greatly outnumbered by the thrash ones. In fact, there's only really the one song that should qualify as groove metal in my opinion in the rock solid & more rhythmically structured closer "(Cadence) Of The Dirge". The rest of the original pieces are thrashtastically energetic extreme metal numbers that have been custom made for casual mosh pit murder & I for one can't get enough of them.

Perhaps "The Law" isn't Exhorder's best record but it's a damn fine one nonetheless & I wish more metalheads would give it the credit it deserves rather than simply overlooking it because it sounds a little different to the debut album they've placed on such a lofty pedestal. For those that are uninitiated, if the idea of taking classic Pantera & combining it with Steve Souza-fronted Exodus & then feeding it Demolition Hammer level amounts of testosterone sounds appealing then you know what you need to do & quickly too.

Florida technical death metallers Nocturnus were a fairly big player in our household from very early on in their recording career. I was lucky enough to discover their 1990 debut album “The Key” shortly after it was released & purchased a copy on cassette. It showcased a highly ambitious band of talented musicians that were looking to push the envelope when it came to both atmospherics, imagery & technique & I found it to be a very solid release indeed. Perhaps not the undeniable classic that many death metal fans will have you believe it is but a worthy purchase that has commanded consistent revisits over the years. 1992’s follow-up album “Thresholds” simply wasn’t in the same caliber from what I remember of it although it was certainly worth a listen at the time & didn’t discourage me from picking up this month’s The Horde feature release (i.e. Nocturnus’ self-titled 7” from 1993) on vinyl immediately after it was released. I don’t remember much about it now to be honest & have no idea what happened to the record I owned but I do recall being a touch underwhelmed even if I certainly found entertainment in it. I’m interested to see how those recollections stack up now actually as I recently revisited “The Key” & it’s renewed my interest.

The ”Nocturnus” 7” is nothing more than a two-song single but includes two previously unreleased non-album tracks intended to showcase the band’s brand new lineup. Bassist Emo Mowery had now filled the empty position that was filled by session musician Chris Anderson on the “Thresholds” album while James Marcinek had now joined the fold at the expense of founding member & band leader Mike Browning (Morbid Angel/Acheron) who had been controversially axed. The two songs take a similar stylistic approach to the one found on “The Key” but there are a few notable differences & characteristics that are worth pointing out.

The first & most obvious thing you’ll notice about this release is the shocking production job which is extremely rough & sees Nocturnus’ trademark flashy guitars being largely nullified. It’s a real shame because this flaw goes a long way to ensuring that the record was never going to have much of an impact, even if you absolutely loved the song-writing. Front man Dan Izzo had been brought in for the “Thresholds” album to enable Browning to focus purely on his drum kit. Here we see him trying awfully hard to sound like notorious Deicide vocalist Glen Benton & doing a reasonable job of it too. In fact, I’d have to suggest that it was a good move to swap him in for Browning as his more angry & aggressive delivery would seem to me to be a better fit for a death metal band. So would the drumming of Marcinek actually, at least I’d take it over the simplistic contribution that Browning gave us on “The Key”. The keyboards of Louis Panzer are still on show but don’t play as prominent a role in these compositions which was an interesting move given that this was one of the major drawcards that was seeing people flocking to Nocturnus. The other was the consistent layers of ultra-shredding guitar solos that were a majorly exciting prospect for this budding young lead guitarist but, once again, the solos have been toned down significantly here which I find to be a really strange decision. Perhaps that’s why we’ve seen these two tracks isolated on a dedicated single? I dunno but it was pretty annoying that Nocturnus had dropped a good chunk of their signature features.

When taken for what they are though, these two songs aren’t too bad & certainly offer enough to keep me interested & entertained. The lengthier “Possess The Priest” has a slight edge over the more aggressive “Mummified” but there’s not a lot between them as they’re both decent enough examples of the technical death metal subgenre. I’ve often seen people trying to utilize the progressive metal tag with this record but I don’t think that’s appropriate as this material is far more consciously technical than it is conceptually expansive. The riffs can sometimes be quite thrashy but I never feel that I’m listening to anything other than a death metal artist at any stage.

So, it would seem that the “Nocturnus” 7” single is bit of a mixture of positives & negatives overall, isn’t it? The production is arguably the most unfortunate & release-defining element but I’m pleased that Nocturnus possessed enough class to overcome that failure to give us a reasonable record nonetheless. Sadly, I can’t see it being enough to draw me back to the single at any point in the future but I don’t think your average Death. Atheist or Pestilence fan will find it to be too repulsive, even if it’s not on the same level as the universally worshipped releases that those bands were dishing out during that period. But then, I’m not sure I ever saw Nocturnus on the same level as those artists in the first place. Not many are though to be fair.

Nocturnus are a band it took me a little while to get in to, but once I got to grips with their debut, The Key, I enjoyed it enormously. Nocturnus is a 7" EP from three years later and following some drama around the departure of founder member, drummer and vocalist on The Key, Mike Browning. Firstly, where you listen to it could make a difference to your opinion. I first found it on YouTube, but the sound is terrible, demo quality and muffled to hell, but the version on Spotify (which is listed as a 2001 release, so may be a remastered version) is much clearer-sounding and definitely superior to the YT version.

There are two tracks on offer here, totalling ten and a half minutes runtime. the "A" side is "Possess the Priest", which is a six-minute slab of glorious Morbid Angel-worshipping OSDM and is my favourite of the two tracks with the transitions from the slower sections to the quicker and vice-versa getting my fists pumping and blood rushing in a good, old-fashioned adrenaline surge. The keyboards are still very much present but, as with The Key, they are quite thin-sounding and merely act as atmospheric support for the riffs. "B"-side "Mummified" sounds a bit like Death during their transition phase from conventional death metal to to prog-tech-death gods and, songwriting-wise, pushes a little bit too far into tech death territory for my preference and, without Chuch Schuldiner's songwriting prowess, it ends up sounding too disjointed for me. Still, it doesn't outstay it's welcome and when coupled with such a great "A"-side the release as a whole works very well as a short EP.

English doom/death legends My Dying Bride had thoroughly blown Ben & I away with their first two releases "Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium" & "As The Flower Withers". In fact, their 1991 "Towards The Sinister" demo was really strong too so I had extremely high hopes for their next record as a teenager back in 1993. The band's experimentation with the incorporation of violin & gothic elements had proved to be a master stroke so the expectation around what they'd deliver us with next was certainly very high. Perhaps My Dying Bride's label & management could feel that excitement because they opted to deliver us a short three-track taster in order to tide us over until the arrival of the classic "Turn Loose The Swans" album later on that year. "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P. would land eight months before that spectacular game-changer & it'd only see my passion for the burgeoning doom/death scene rising to fever pitch.

"The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P. contains just the three tracks across its eighteen-minute duration, two of which take the form of their signature doom/death metal sound with the other being something a little different for My Dying Bride. The production job on the two metal songs isn't perfect with the rhythm guitars sounding a little wishy washy to my ears & the violin coming across as a tad artificial too. Thankfully though, the riffs are as crushing as we've come to expect from a My Dying Bride release with Aaron's iconic death growls being in full effect. There are some subtle differences from the band's debut album on show here. The guitar tone is starting to head away from the filthy death metal graveyard it had resided in previously &, despite the production issues, the overall package just seems to be a little more polished & professional. The violin parts that permeated "As The Flower Withers" aren't quite as prominent here either as they play more of a supporting role than they do the thematic protagonist we were presented with on some of the band's stronger works to the time. I'd suggest that there isn't quite as much undiluted death metal included in this material either. It's a little more consistently doomy than the earlier releases were.

The E.P. kicks off with the title track which is generally regarded as the strongest inclusion of the three. Interestingly, I'm gonna go the other way & say that it's the track that I connect with the least. Don't get me wrong, it's still a very strong piece that borders on being a classic in its own right but I just don't think it quite gels as well as My Dying Bride's most transcendent & timeless material. Easily the most divisive song is the dark ambient piece "Le cerf malade" that splits the two metal numbers & I have to admit that I've always found it to be the highlight of the record. Admittedly I'm a big ambient music fan & this piece absolutely nails the atmosphere it sets out to explore. In fact, I'd suggest that any ambient artist worth their salt would be drooling over this track to be honest. Closing doom/death anthem "Gather Me Up Forever" goes pretty close to equaling it too. It's the doomier of the two metal songs & doesn't taint its more beautiful & melodic doom moments with chuggier mid-paced riffage as much as the title track does so there's not a hint of filler here with every piece offering the listener a significant artistic & atmospheric pay-off.

"The Thrash of Naked Limbs" doesn't get quite as much attention as its more highly regarded predecessors but I have a big soft spot for the more mature & refined composition that predicted the direction the band would soon take & this saw it making just as big an impact on my life. In fact, I've tended to think of the E.P. as My Dying Bride's strongest overall work to the time & this revisit has only strengthened that feeling even though there's very little between the three proper releases. This is not only an essential My Dying Bride record but it's an essential release for the doom/death subgenre overall. It rightfully stands alongside the band's finest work & should have Paradise Lost, Anathema & Novembers Doom fans frothing at the mouth.

1991's "Worship Him" debut album was a relatively big record for Ben & I back in the early 1990's. I was already a fan of the First Wave of Black Metal when I first discovered Switzerland's Samael & their first full-length possessed some of the best traits from a number of those bands which saw me being heavily attracted to their fairly simple yet deeply atmospheric take on early black metal; their measured & doomy sense of control being in direct contrast to the death metal explosion that I was right up to my eyeballs in at the time. We'd pick up 1992's follow-up album "Blood Ritual" on CD & would give it a very similar treatment & with a fairly similar result from what I recall too. I didn't regard either record as being classics for the genre at the time but felt that they were essential early black metal release nonetheless. I always got the feeling that they sported a timeless quality & that element is still very much in effect with this week's revisit.

"Blood Ritual" isn't as different from "Worship Him" as some reviewers tend to make out. It certainly contains a cleaner, heavier production job that has obviously been inspired by felllow Swiss extreme metal legends Celtic Frost with the thick layers of rhythm guitar being a clear highlight of the record. The slow-to-mid paced tempos of "Worship Him" have only been dialed back a little further with the doomy vibe of the slower material off the debut having been accentuated here. If anything the riff structures are even less typical of the modern-day black metal sound too with thrash & doom metal tools being utilized within the context of a black metal atmosphere. Guitarist Vorphalack's grim Quorthon-inspired vocals always end to tie Samael to the black metal genre too, along with the darker feel & simpler riff structures. This is black metal at its most primitive, only with a production that goes very much against the traditional lo-fi grain that black metal was built on but one that definitely suits Samael's character traits. Celtic Frost are the clear source of inspiration here & (as with "Worship Him") I can't help but wonder as to just how much of an influence the early Samael releases had on Darkthrone's transition into black metal, particularly records like "Panzerfaust". The early works of Greece's Rotting Christ & Varathron also come to mind due to the similarities in style & tempo.

The tracklisting on "Blood Ritual" is very top-heavy with the vast majority of the stronger material residing on the A side. There's a short lull in the middle of the album with the faster title track (a re-recorded track from their 1988 "Macabre Operatta" demo tape) & short interlude "Since the Creation..." failing to hit the mark before things return to more enjoyable territories for the remainder of the record. The most notable inclusion is the incredible "After the Sepulture" which was clearly Samael's finest moment to the time & is still one of my all-time favourites amongst the earlier black metal acts. It represents Samael's first genuine classic & is probably the differentiator between where the two albums stand for me personally. Other highlights include "Poison Infiltration", "Bestial Devotion", the solid opener "Beyond the Nothingness" & the lengthy "Macabre Operatta" (another re-recording from the demo of the same name").

"Blood Ritual" is another high-quality effort from a black metal band that had been around a lot longer than most at the time & showed a clear understanding of the key elements that make the genre so great. There's not a lot between Samael's first two full-lengths but I tend to find "Blood Ritual" just edging out its older sibling overall, buoyed by the impact of the wonderful "After the Sepulture" while "Worship Him" lacked such a transcendent highlight track. 1994 would see Samael topping both records with their career-defining "Ceremony of Opposites" third album but "Blood Ritual" is probably still my second favourite Samael record of the ones I've heard & it should be essential listening for anyone wanting to gain a comprehensive understanding of where the black metal genre came from.

Coffins are one of those bands who are treated with contempt by a vast swathe of the metal-buying (or more accurately, metal-streaming) public for adhering to a formula they are comfortable with and which they replicate throughout their career as the primary means for expressing their artistic intentions. Bands like Coffins' refusal to continually push the envelope and experiment with new modes of expression seems to rub a significant number of people up the wrong way, but you know what, fuck 'em, I love the determination of these guys to populate the world with soul-crushing, cavernous and guttural OSDM, so if you are one of those people, then you know where you can shove your contempt because neither I nor Uchino and the guys could give a shit.

The riffs are thick and meaty with a crunchy, yet unctuous guitar sound that is derived from such purveyors of old-school, cavernous death metal as Autopsy and Asphyx, although it's more modern and cleaner production does actually downplay the echoing quality of older releases, even so, Coffins' riffs still hit like a punch to the lower gut region. As is usual, they walk the tightrope between conventional death metal and death doom, not being shy in slowing down the tempo to ominously hulking and doom-ridden, yet changing up to faster, d-beat-driven moshpit-frenzy fare at the flick of a metaphorical switch. There is no flashiness from these guys, they don't try to embellish their sound or push the envelope in any way, everything they do is effectively functional, with a set vision that requires a particular, some may say basic, style of playing which they have perfected over the years to the degree where few can pull off this particular style better - maybe more skillfully, but rarely as effectively. Uchino's vocals are crusty and uber-gutteral, as if he is trying to replicate the sound Godzilla would produce if he was the vocalist with a death metal band rather than a world-saving (or destroying) prehistoric throwback.

At the end of the day, this is nothing more or less than "don't fuck with us" old-school, doomy death metal originally dragged from the pits of hell at the dawn of the 1990s and if that is your bag, then give this a listen, if it isn't then don't because there is no reason why this would change your mind, although how any death metal fan can't be fired-up by a track like "Domains of Black Miasma" is well beyong my capability to understand.

I stumbled over the debut album from Texas' Embodyment around 15 years ago while desperately trying to catch up on all of the great death metal releases I'd missed out on during my self-imposed, decade-long hiatus from the metal scene. "Embrace The Eternal" was reasonably well thought of in death metal circles at the time but Embodyment's remaining back catalogue seemed to be frowned upon for reasons I was unaware of so I went into the album with an open mind. I was also unaware of the links with Christianity & the early deathcore scene that now permeate the release & I honestly don't recall thinking I'd discovered the building blocks of a new genre with that experience either so this month's feature release nomination represents a good chance to reassess that position, particularly given the strong statements from our resident The Revolution devotee Andi.

"Embrace The Eternal" is a well-produced & executed record from a band that were already well in control of their chosen instruments. In fact, they can occasionally be guilty of being a little TOO precise to be honest as the weaker moments on the album do tend to sound like they're in autopilot & lacking a bit of electricity. The clinical production is led by a particularly clicky kick-drum so if that element is something you usually struggle with then I'd perhaps give this release a wide birth. In saying that though, current Living Sacrifice drummer Mark Garza is arguably the highlight of the record with his super-precise performance giving Embodyment a particularly solid platform to work off. I mean, clicky kick drums can be very unforgiving at times but here we see Garza pulling everything off effortlessly. Front man Kris McCaddon's contribution isn't your average deep death metal or deathcore growl though. Instead, we see him sporting a screamier approach that sits right at the mid-point between Carcass' Jeff Walker & the classic metalcore delivery. He tends to be a bit of a one-trick pony on the evidence here too as he really does stick to the one thing the whole way through the album's duration.

Now for the elephant in the room... Despite "Embrace The Eternal" being claimed as one of the founding releases for the deathcore genre, I have to question that consensus. You see, there is nothing terribly unusual or original here from an instrumental point of view. This is purely a death metal record from that perspective with Suffocation being the primary source of inspiration. As someone that absolutely worshipped (& at times sought to emulate) that wonderful band, it's really obvious that Embodyment were also bowing down at the altar of "Effigy of the Forgotten", even if they do tend to shy away from Suffocation's more technical side & aren't nearly as brutal. The regular use of breakdowns is certainly worth mentioning but they don't seem to be drawn from the hardcore scene as far as I can tell, instead being borrowed from the early slam death metal one. Unlike Suffocation though, Embodyment's death metal sound has as much to do with your classic old-school death metal model as it does with the brutal death metal one & you should be able to pick up the influence of bands like Morbid Angel at times too. Then during the second half of the album we start to see some more diverse influences seeping in with the odd Fear Factory groove or jumpy Korn-style nu metal section appearing. While that idea might not sound all that appealing on paper, Embodyment seem to have the class to pull it off nonetheless. It's really just the vocals that draw upon hardcore for inspiration though as the instrumentation can basically be summarized under the death metal banner &, even then, McCaddon's tone isn't even close to the super-gutteral, ultra-deep death growl employed by most deathcore front men these days. Therefore, I struggle to see how "Embrace The Eternal" is a seminal deathcore release to be honest. If it's just the vocals that draw it into that space then Carcass' "Heartwork" would surely suffer the same fate & that idea certainly isn't on the table.

With that said, "Embrace The Eternal" is a very solid extreme metal album in its own right with no weak tracks included. There's a clear consistency to the ten songs & the Christian lyrical content will have absolutely no impact on you unless you go out of your way to investigate what McCaddon is going on about. I personally choose not to & are much better off for it given my strong feelings about organised religion in general. I'd recommend that our The Horde members leave any preconceived notions at the door & give "Embrace The Eternal" a chance to win them over because it's really a very solid first-up effort & one that will have you pondering over how Embodyment's next record could possibly fall into the realm of our The Gateway clan.

Hamferð are a six-piece doom metal band from The Faroe Islands. They have been in existence since 2008, but this is only their third full-length release in all that time, their debut having seen the light of day back in 2013 after winning the Wacken Metal Battle competition at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2012 and it's follow-up hitting the shelves in 2018. I must admit, I have only recently got on board with these guys myself during a dive into exploring more obscure doom metal bands, but I found much to enjoy in both of their earlier releases.

The new album's title translates as "But God's hand is strong" and the lyrics are sung in Hamferð's native Faroese, relating the tragic tale of fourteen faroese whalers who lost their lives at sea in 1915, with the album's title being a quote from one of the survivors upon his rescue. Musically they play strongly melodic death doom with both growled and clean vocals provided by singer Jón Aldará (also of Iotunn and Barren Earth) who switches between styles, to good effect, often within the same track. The band as a whole are very proficient with a nice clean sound that perfectly suits their more melodic approach to death doom. This melodic approach doesn't seek to crush the listener under waves of heavy riffing, but rather  attempts to affect them more subtly with sorrowful airs that worm their way into the consciousness, effecting a deeper sensation of melancholy than a merely bludgeoning approach would achieve. Occasionally they become very light of touch indeed, verging almost on the balladic, which may have come off as a bit corny, were it not for the consummate ability of Aldará who, vocally, never descends into overt melodrama, but who maintains a subtle earnestness throughout, for which he deserves great credit.

I may have given the impression that this is a lightweight album and even though it does like to paint it's sonic landscape with lighter shades, there are certainly heavy moments present. Opener Ábær kicks things off and drags the listener in with a suitably heavy, but also melodic main riff and penultimate track, Hvølja, is the album's heaviest with a monster riff that poses a real risk of crushing the air out of the lungs of the unprepared listener who may have been lulled into a comfort zone by some of the preceeding lighter moments. Elsewhere, second track Rikin features a scarily bellowing Aldará threatening to peel the paintwork with his growls on top of a thundering main riff that you feel at gut level.

Although Men guðs hond er sterk is a concept album, thankfully the music is always pre-eminent over the concept, so none of the tracks feel forced, with the possible exception of the final spoken-word piece, although it isn't at all jarring, especially as it is the final track. The overall impression I get from the album is similar in feel to some of Enslaved's later work, such as RIITIIR or In Times, only within a doom metal framework rather than black metal. I don't wish to downplay the others' contributions, but ultimately it is the astonishing vocal talent of Jón Aldará that strikes me more than any other aspect of the album and on the evidence of this he is one of the absolute best vocalists working in the doom metal field and his performance alone is worth the entry fee.

Chilean thrash metallers Critical Defiance & I have enjoyed a very fruitful relationship over the last five years. In a scene that has largely maintained itself purely off the back of its distant heritage, these South Americans have managed to release a couple of records that have proven to been worthy of my interest in their own right, particularly 2022's "No Life Forms" sophomore album which I consider to be fairly essential for fans of the modern-day Chilean thrash scene. So, I think it's fair to say that I had high hopes for the brand new follow-up album "The Search Won't Fall..." which has predictably been receiving a fair amount of praise from the underground thus far. It hasn't disappointed either with Critical Defiance delivering yet another solid piece of thrash metal designed specifically for an audience that have been starved of high-quality material in recent times.

The production job that "The Search Won't Fall..." is built on is pretty decent but is perhaps a little too heavy on the mid-range frequencies & I think the album could have done with a little more highs as a result. The musicianship is top notch though with the five instrumentalists all proving themselves to be highly proficient in their chosen crafts. As with "No Life Forms", we once again see the unusual inclusion of a third guitarist, a differentiator that the band make good use of but probably won't be picked up by the band's less informed listeners. I really enjoy the shredding Slayer-esque guitar solos which are generally well timed with former Demoniac shredder Nicolás Young being a welcome addition to the band. The song structures feature a crap-tonne of changes too although I struggle to see any justification for the tech thrash claims that seem to be associated with the album as I honestly can't hear anything particularly technical here. Front man Felipe Alvarado's aggressive vocals are well-suited to this style of music but its drummer Rodrigo Poblete (also formerly of Demoniac) that's the clear highlight of the album with his powerful, precise & exciting contribution clearly indicating the role that Slayer's Dave Lombardo has played a clear role in his musical up-bringing.

Stylistically, there's a bit more to Critical Defiance than your run-of-the-mill 80's-worshipping thrash outfit these days. They tend to mix things up a bit by throwing in some well executed curve balls & also varying their track lengths & song structures fairly drastically. You'll no doubt notice that there are a few longer & more expansive pieces included than we found on "No Life Forms" with some progressive options having been explored. There are a couple of tracks that showcase a clear black metal component too (particularly the outstanding "Full Paranoia") while "Long Distance (The What's to Come)" & "Absolüt" are built as much on speed metal as they are on thrash. You can also expect to receive a classical guitar piece ("The Blind Divine"), a progressive rock instrumental ("Margarita") & a full-throttle grindcore number ("All The Powers") so you can hardly claim "The Search Won't Fall..." to be samey. There aren't any weak inclusions either so it's a very consistent affair from a highly competent & experienced artist.

"The Search Won't Fall..." really does pick up where "No Life Forms" left off. It's another very solid Critical Deception release that will likely come into consideration for my end of year list & will no doubt be receiving return visits from me in the future too. I'd suggest ignoring the tech thrash claims & going into the record expecting more of a Kreator/Vio-lence brand of aggressive thrash only with a slightly more adventurous edge that sees them drawing upon a more diverse array of artists such as Hellripper & early Emperor for inspiration at times.

When it comes to stoner metal, Sleep are virtually mandatory a listen, right?  As I continue to spread my wings in The Fallen clan I am fnally getting around to a band that seem to get universal praise amongst peers.  It seems you simply cannot class yourself as a fan of doom/stoner metal without acknowledging the importance of Sleep.  I am not here to upset that apple cart either.  Based on this album at least, I like what I am hearing enough to commit to a review, and I will start off by saying that Sleep are a lot of fun to my ears.  Playing as an almost uber-organic jam session, I soon find myself not really caring about track listings or even individual songs, just enjoying the album overall instead.

Coming to the band via Om and the album Pilgrimage, wich I find to be a much more serious yet still thoroughly enjoyable release, Sleep are more like the cool Uncle who let's you have a sneaky can of ale round his house when you are fourteen as opposed to the more focussed family member that is Om.  I would go as far as to say that Sleep's Holy Mountain is even a sloppy record in places with the percussion going off on its own merry way on occasion.  However, this does not come as an unexpected thing in all honesty.  This is truly one of the most free-sounding records I have ever heard, that spontaneous feel to the record coupled with the relaxed atmosphere make for a very natural performance.  I dispute that this is only for people high on drugs (although I do have a strong English Breakfast Tea in my hand currently which is as potent as I get nowadays) but it is hard to not conjure that stereotype when listening to music like this.  The fact is that the music transcends the stereotype with pretty much minimal effort.

The casual playing and the previously mentioned cumbersome trajectory it takes just adds to the enamour I have with the album in all honesty.  Tracks such as Dragonaut, The Druid and the brilliant Inside the Sun are what Sleep are all about.  Zero fucks to give metal for folks who went shopping for fucks to give but the stores were all sold out.  You can throw Black Sabbath worship references all you want, and you'd be right, although I doubt it al that intentional.  However, you can also put on any Electric Wizard or Cathedral record and align Sleep with those modern doom references with just as much ease.  Shave off the instrumental tracks and the album comes up by half a mark on the scores too.