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I stumbled upon this split album featuring Germany's Dead & Sweden's Regurgitate during my mid-90's tape trading heyday, inspired to investigate it after having really dug Regurgitate's debut album "Effortless Regurgitation of Bright Red Blood" from earlier the same year. I'd never heard of Dead before but ended up getting a fair bit of enjoyment out of both band's contributions to what could only be described as one of the better goregrind releases I've encountered. I don't believe I've returned to it in the many years since though, instead tending to turn to a couple of my Regurgitate records of choice whenever I feel the urge but I'm glad that I've finally given it another listen this week, even if I suspect that it might not receive another sitting from me in the future.

This split release is a collection that includes eight new songs from each band as well as the five Regurgitate tracks that were included on their split 7" single with German noisegrind outfit Vaginalmassaker back in 1992. Dead's inclusions would later receive a dedicated release on 2011's "For Lovers of the New Bizarre" album while I think this is the only place you'll find the new Regurgitate material. The two bands have quite different sounds to each other but are both well worth hearing & it's really just a matter of taste as to which you might prefer. Dead's contribution is very well produced with a thick & chunky guitar tone that fills your headphones with a heavy combination of classic death metal & blasting goregrind. I'd suggest that the former is comfortably in the ascendency here though which makes Dead an attractive option for me given my taste profile. The Germans tend to explore a lot more territory in regard to tempo than their more consistently brutal Swedish counterparts with their triple-vocal approach drawing close comparisons to Carcass' late 80's releases. Regurgitate offer a much dirtier & more traditional goregrind sound that I tend to prefer, mainly because it's a touch more relentless in its commitment to pure savagery. The tracks from the 7" single sound noticeably different though & are clearly less effective than the newer material with the vocals being produced in that ridiculous vocoded, monster-esque fashion that has often annoyed me about the goregrind scene. I greatly prefer the more deathly growl employed on the more brutal new songs that make up for their less impressive production job with pure energy & attitude.

You can't really go wrong with these 21 tracks if you're an extreme metal fan with only a couple of duds amongst them. Dead's decision to close out their side with an annoying cover version of Mentors' "Woman of Sodom" was hard to understand as it certainly detracts from what was otherwise a pretty rock solid deathgrind experience. The first track from Regurgitate's split with single with Vaginalmassaker "Morbid Reality" isn't amazing either but I get a fair bit of enjoyment out of the remainder of this record without ever really discovering anything too game-changing. Dead's best material comes right at the beginning of the album with the one-two punch of "For Lovers of the New Bizarre" into "Far Beyond Your Imagination" being the clear highlights. The new Regurgitate inclusions offer a more consistently strong standard though which is perhaps why I've ended up exploring more of their releases in the future while leaving Dead behind. The first three songs on their side are all really solid while the same can be said for the trio of tracks starting with the violent mosh pit anthem "Praedilectio for Menorrhagia". None of Regurgitate's efforts overstay their welcome which is just how I like my grindcore. As soon as they've hit on a riff that I find to be less appealing they've moved on to something that hits my fancy which is a great way to keep the listeners attention.

While this split release might not be the most original one you'll ever hear, it does offer a point of difference from the rest of the goregrind records out there in that neither band fit into the generic goregrind model. I've really enjoyed Dead's more death metal-inspired sound as well as the strong production job while Regurgitate's tendency to steer away from those ridiculous vocoded vocals for the majority of their allocation while blasting me into submission with exciting grindcore instrumentation has left me feeling exhilarated at times. It's a shame that they didn't close out the album in the same fashion though as the shorter tracks from the Vaginalmassaker split sound a little inferior in comparison, even if I generally enjoy most of those songs in isolation. As it is though, the Dead/Regurgitate split has been well worth a revisit, even if I can't see myself returning to it any time soon. I think I'm far more likely to reach for my Regurgitate releases of choice (i.e. "Effortless Regurgitation of Bright Red Blood" & 2002's "Hatefilled Vengeance" E.P.) instead to be honest.

For fans of Dead Infection, Haemorrhage & early Carcass.

With their fourth album, 'Tales from the Punchbowl', Primus have finally managed to channel all their talent into something somewhat akin to a cohesive rock album. Taking their unusual style of offbeat, alternative funk rock and applying it in a more traditional rock setting, Primus have managed to produce a record that is more accessible to the mainstream public, without having to compromise their own distinct sound.

There's no other band that embodies the term "acquired taste" better than Primus, and even on a release that features some of the bands most radio-friendly material, there's plenty of their obscure (and somewhat self-indulgent) weirdness, that doesn't follow any type of traditional songwriting trait, and features an almost monotone spoken-word dialogue.

But yet, unlike previous albums, I seem to be able to tolerate it here. The odd music, the random, yet interesting lyrics, the humour... everything here just seems to work on some artistic level or another. It's like a car crash, an ugly mess but you just can't look away.

The highlights for me are 'Professor Nutbutters House of Treats', 'Mrs Blaileen', 'Southbound Pachyderm', 'Over the Electric Grapevine', and of course, the band's biggest hit, 'Wynona's Big Brown Beaver' (which is for me, like so many others, the song that introduced me to Primus). But the album flows so smoothly that even small, comedic, filler tracks such as 'Space Farm' and 'De Anza Jag' are infectious and notable in their own right.

As interesting as it is unique, Primus truly aren't to everyone's tastes (including my own), but 'Tales from the Punchbowl' is just a straight-up good album, and serves as a great starting point if you're new to the band.

German deathgrind outfit Dead & I first made our acquaintance back in 1994 when I stumbled over their split CD with Swedish goregrinders Regurgitate, a release that I quite liked at the time but one that wasn't strong quite enough to see me following Dead into the future with the band still active today. Earlier this week though, I decided to revisit the Dead/Regurgitate split &, while I was undertaking that exercise, I discovered that Dead's contribution to that release could be found in isolation on their 2011 "For Lovers of the New Bizarre" album. That particular record has given me some mild enjoyment over the last few days which has triggered me to write this review, a positive affirmation of the talents of a relatively unknown yet still more than decent extreme metal band who doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel but understands the wheel's functionality & intent very well.

Dead had released five or six demos & E.P.'s prior to the Regurgitate split, none of which I recall hearing before, & would enter Nürnberg's Pinguin Studios with unknown engineer Rainer Deckelmann to record their side of the split album some time in the first half of 1994. Dead had maintained the three-piece lineup that recorded their initial demo tape "Far Beyond Your Imagination" three years earlier & you can hear that in the professional way they lay down their craft here. Their model seems to have been crafted on the early Carcass one with each of the three band members contributing vocals in a triple-threat configuration that sees deeper grunts being complimented by higher register gurgles. Dead's sound is thick, chunky & tight with their simple riffs being backed up by a unified delivery that leaves each song sounding not only very heavy but also quite catchy. In a stylistic sense, I feel that they have a foot in both the goregrind & classic death metal camps which is an attractive option for me personally as it allows me to take them a little more seriously than most bands that are connected with the goregrind movement.

The tracklisting is a touch top-heavy with the album opening with the best material, my favourites being the blasting title track & the equally high-quality demo track "Far Beyond Your Imagination" which had been re-recorded for this exercise. I particularly enjoy the sections where Dead slow things down a bit with the excellent production job giving the band's doomier side the weight it needs to draw a physical reaction from the listener. The blasting Carcass-inspired grind sections are also really exciting & are executed with a suitable level of precision. All of this material is pretty fun actually although I have to question the decision to include a silly cover version of Mentors' "Woman of Sodom" to close out the record because it does leave me a bad taste in my mouth. I know its lyrical themes fit in with Dead's sexually provocative image but its general silliness tends to detract from an otherwise pretty good release. 

While "For Lovers of the New Bizarre" may not be essential listening, I've found myself getting into it quite a bit this week. I'm not sure it'll be enough to see me reaching for the rest of Dead's back catalogue but it was an admirable effort nonetheless. I've never been the biggest goregrind fan to be honest but this death metal-infused version seems entirely more palatable & is well worth exploring.

For fans of Blood, Pungent Stench & Fornicator.

When I was first getting back into metal, around the turn of the millenium, I had a very good friend who wasn't much of a metal fan, but was heavily into the female-fronted symphonic metal scene and through them I became interested in the Finns with the striking, classically-trained lead singer who, along with Italy's Lacuna Coil, seemed like the only ones in this style who seemed worth the attention. My first exposure to them was through their debut "Angels Fall First" album which had a number of tracks that impressed, particularly "Elvenpath" and "Astral Romance". Subsequent albums "Oceanborn" and especially "Wishmaster" always had a track or two that I enjoyed, "The Pharaoh Sails to Orion" on the former and the title track and "The Kinslayer" on the latter. By the early 2000s I was bathing in the dubious glories of more extreme metal genres like black and doom metal, yet I was still interested enough in new Nightwish material to take note, but unfortunately I thought 2002's Century Child was a dip in quality, so by the time of the release of 2004's "Once" I was not really that interested. However, videos for "Nemo" and "Wish I Had an Angel" saw me being dragged back in by Tarja's charismatic presence, to the degree that I actually bought the album on CD while I was in town one weekend.

Now, I would be lying if I said that this was high on my list of all-time great metal releases, but I would be lying just as much if I claimed to dislike it completely. I have a natural aversion to overblown metal genres in general and symphonic metal in particular, but no one has ever rivalled Tarja-fronted Nightwish in the genre and every other band in this field so obviously wants to be them that they must have been doing something right. The operatic orchestration and synths may well be what draws people to this style of metal, but for me, it is the surprisingly heavy, yet melodic riffs, Tarja's vocals and their ability to write memorable tunes that are the beating heart of Nightwish and which none of their rivals can remotely match. There is a nice variation in pacing and atmosphere on "Once", from heavy and bombastic to reflective and wistful which manages to keep me engaged for the total runtime. The band are obviously well-versed in their instruments and the clarity of the production allows them all their space to impress and in Tarja Turunen they have probably the singularly most accomplished and physically striking frontwoman in the history of metal.

It may do my metal street-cred no good whatsoever (as if I could give a shit), but I happily chuck "Once" into the CD player now and then when I just want to hear some entertaining metal solely for enjoyment and to feel uplifted and not to think about too deeply.

Xandria is a weird band. There was one album of theirs I really liked, whose name escapes me and whose quality is unlike the band. Because Xandria, despite existing for the past two decades aping Nightwish and Within Temptation and anyone you might remember more, has changed vocalists and styles every album. At least as much as one can while still remaining a symphonic metal band. This one is special because everyone except founding member Marco Heubaum left since the last album. Some of those people were actually around for decades.
Stylistically, this album apes Nightwish - Dark Passion Play a lot. Specifically the big orchestra bits of The Poet and the Pendulum. The new vocalist sounds a lot like Anette if she was an operatic soprano...and with the ever so lovely modern electronic vocal effects. One wonders why they went to all the trouble of writing all this fancy music if they were just going to ruin the vocals like that. Might as well write the ten trillionth pop song released this year at that point.
Then again, it matches the lyrics. Special consideration has to be given to the sheer level of pretention this shit has. There are a lot of complex concepts that the lyrics want to address that it doesn't really do so. Opening song Two Worlds is a good example, seemingly your average song that seems like it's about being hopeful and dreams. Then it rapidly brings up fake news and Orwell before just sort of forgetting about it. It's trying to be deep and philosophical, but comes off superficial and self-congratulatory. Wanting to be deep without actually putting in the effort to be deep.
Now, this isn't necessarily to say it's a bad album. I like Dark Passion Play a lot, ergo I like this. But it's clear that Heubaum will always be the servant rather than the master. He's very good at making songs, but he needs someone competent to yell at him and say no, and that's not something he'll ever get. And somebody to write riffs, because you have heard all of them before, done far better.
Also, apparently Ralf Scheepers is on the third track but the other vocalist is a growler. Is Scheepers just a backing singer there? But why though?
Competent, but you've definitely heard it all before.

World Below are a relatively unknown name outside of diehard swedish doom metal fandom. Formed in 1999, they involve veterans of a plethora of swedish metal bands such as Scar Symmetry, Grave and Carnal Forge, among many others, and have released three full-lengths to date, of which Repulsion is the third. They are still mooted as a going concern, but have been silent, at least as far as recorded material goes, for almost two decades now.

Repulsion is made up of five lengthy tracks with a 50+ minute runtime. Musically it has it's feet firmly planted in the eighties and early nineties and the old-school traditional doom metal of Pentagram, The Obsessed and lesser-known lights like Revelation with plenty of Sabbath-y moments, particularly during opening track, "Monsters in the Closet", with it's Ozzy-like vocals and "Children of the Grave" aping riff. Whilst the first half of the album sit firmly within the traditional doom metal sphere, the second also contains a significant stoner rock component and the album as a whole makes a nod or two in a progressive direction, particularly the epic twenty-minute, closer, "Monument", giving the second half more than a passing resemblance to the work of prog-stoner bands like Merlin.

The songwriting is very good, with the tracks all developing nicely, feeling like they are actually going somewhere and the technical aspects are very accomplished. The riffs are suitably heavy and mournful, the rhythm section of drummer Ronnie Bergerstål and bassist / vocalist Mikael Danielsson are unfussy and direct, providing solid footing for guitarist Jonas Kjellgren to launch some very satisfying solos, his Tony-Iommi influenced guitar work being the focal point for almost all the album's best moments.

It may well be that Repulsion is not going to satisfy the doom fan looking for bleak as hell, crushingly heavy, ultra-slow riffs and mournful, heart-achingly bereft vocals and the inclusion of some old-fashioned, rock-based riffs may further tip the scales against it, but if you are willing to forgive it it's perceived transgressions then it contains some fantastic lead work and memorable stoner doom riffs coupled with epic and skillful songwriting that may just persuade you of it's undoubted merits.

I first encountered this Seattle-based doom duo via their "The Black Sun" debut ep in 2015 and I have been quite the fan ever since. Comprising husband and wife team of bassist and vocalist Amy Tung and drummer, Jon Barrysmith, Year of the Cobra are a unique voice in the world of doom metal. Of course they are influenced by the usual suspects, such as Saint Vitus, Sabbath et al, but they eschew the use of guitars, relying on Amy's bass riffs to power the songs. Her bass playing reminds me quite often of Geezer Butler's classic Sabbath style, which oftentimes lends it a psychedelic and bluesy edge, planting Year of the Cobra firmly in the stoner doom camp. Vocally, she mainly uses a languid and breathy style that is laid-back and seductive like a nightclub jazz songstress, check out opener "Lion and the Unicorn" for a prime example. That isn't her only play, however, and she can also project more force when the need arises.

There are a number of pitfalls with having such a bare bones set-up of course, the tendency to fall into repetitive and hypnotic trance-like pieces for one, or just producing very basic, lo-fi garage metal with a heavy punk influence is another scenario. YotC fall into neither of these traps, however, thanks to an ability to write really nice doomy bass riffs which enable them to produce actual songs rather than just drawn-out jams, which are at once melodic and reasonably memorable, with an admirable variation in tempos and styles, from the longer, hulking, conventional doom tracks, through the psych-inflected catchiness of "Spider and the Fly", the punky vitality and urgency of "Persephone" and doom'n'roll of "Temple of Apollo" to bluesy jams such as closer "Electric Warrior". I think the bass lines are multi-tracked quite often, which also allows Amy's playing to become more expansive. Drummer Johannes is every bit as important to the success of the duo, his impeccable timekeeping obviously underpinning the tracks, but also his busy, jazzy style, again referencing Sabbath and drummer Bill Ward's love of jazz drummers, provides plenty to hold the the listener's attention and to engage with.

In conclusion, I think "...in the Shadows Below" is a great example of how much can be accomplished in the doom and stoner sphere by creative minds, even with the most basic of set-ups. Considering that, apart from a bit of multi-tracking, this is truly just drum, bass, and voice, the resulting variety, melodicism and memorability is an impressive feat of artistic endeavour.

I was already across this release as we headed into November and so seeing it added to the feature roster lined it up nicely for review.  As those folky rich melodies sent my brain into a near trace-like state, I did start to question my credentials as a nail coated wristband wearing black metal fan.  But then I remembered my enjoyment of Mare Cognitum and Darkspace and convinced myself that my icy soul was no nearer to being thawed as I first feared.  The inclusion of such a heavy amount of synths is perhaps the most challenging part of Vortex of the Worlds yet at the same time it would not work as well as an album without them.  They do sound incredibly artificial and are without doubt the main culprit in steering the album away from the more extreme boundaries of black metal, but I find at the same time they are relatively easy to make peace with given their obvious contribution to such a rich and luscious soundscape.

When taken out of consideration for a moment, the synths are far from the only positive element of the instrumentation.  The tremolo riffing is excellent (Transcendence) both in isolation and also in accompaniment to everything else. When paired with vocals, they ground the album in the more familiar and safe territory of atmo-black. The programmed drums do not go unnoticed, but are hardly a problem either as I do not believe that Labyrinthus Stellarum wrote Vortex of the Worlds with any desire to focus on percussion. The lack of bass is the only real issue I have as it does makes things sound unnecessarily sterile and gives those synths an almost smothering edge at times.  There is a rumbling "something" in the background but I would suggest it is just the intentional density added in the production to mask the lack of bass.

My instinct suggests that Labyrinthus Stellarum will move too far away from a core black metal sound in subsequent releases to this one.  For now, Vortex of the Worlds is a sensible gateway into that vortex that I sense will soon lose some of its appeal in the coming records.  I am more than happy to celebrate the successes of this record though and acknowledge its bravery in sticking to its ideals and values.  It retains a unique edge without dropping into a Summoning level of repetition and genuinely has some exciting and intense moments that standout.  The songwriting suggests that particular methodology is sound enough as the crescendos mid-track are effective and create some of the strongest moments in the record.  The album has grown on me with repeated listens but I can sense that looming distance is coming still.

When I fired up this bad boy, it had been far too long since I last heard Nasty Savage, remembering their '80s stuff as some surprisingly dirty-sounding power/thrash. Sleaze thrash would be an apt descriptor. But bands rarely sound the same after nearly forty years and a nearly complete lineup change, what would be the difference?
They've definitely gone for a more straight thrash sound, and it's very different, but it's still Nasty Savage. Gone is the sleaze and instead we have a grimness to things. Vocalist Nasty Ronnie sounds not like the high pitched vocalists of the '80s, like he used to be, but like Lee Dorian off Soul Sacrifice. It's a very odd thing to hear, but fits the package. I wonder if it was intentional or accidental?
Despite a mostly new lineup since the good old days, it doesn't really feel like Ronnie + some hired guns. Unless this is just a masterclass in managing hired guns. You'd swear they were working together for decades; They got some good energy. They come together well to make a song, but individually they are less than the whole. The riffs aren't particularly memorable; The lyrics are vaguely connected nonsense and probably have the exact same lines in all the verses; The drum sound is one of those obnoxious electronic-sounding ones. As a complete package, they work together for a grimy, creepy sound. And it helps that the solos, while not true guitar god territory, have the right mix of technicality and story-telling to get there.
Most of the songs, while they'll have a slight deviation from the usual thrash formula, are mostly what you expect. Then there are the oddities on the album. Witches' Sabbath starts off like a Pink Floyd song and then something more Mercyful Fate-esque. At this point the album is solidly thrash, despite a few intros, so this noticeable even during a casual listen. Despite the out of place theatrical nature, it does a good job of breaking up what might otherwise be a monotonous album. Schizoid Platform sounds completely different to the rest, like some Voivod/Atheist piece. Not really tech thrash, it just sounds like it. I don't know if they changed the guitar tone on this song to song like Atheist or if it's always like that and this just reminded me of an Atheist song. I'm a huge sucker for both those bands (well, Doom Japan and Atheist, but Voivod is Doom for the average metalhead) so I really liked it. That said, as the lead singles, I question the decision to pick these. I just assumed that the whole album would sound like Schizoid Platform.
I'm glad to see a band successfully survive after losing most of its members and coming up with a new, yet distinctly them sound. Time will tell if they can keep it up or if this is merely a lucky one-off.

Let's see if I can say something unique about this one. Probably not. I've been trying to get back into playing the guitar, which I generally can't make as intelligent observations about my own skill or lackthereof outside of stuff like "how the fuck do you play that chord?" or "made that note high-pitched". Every skill from guitar to language learning has observations you can make as an amateur and observations you can only make if you actually know what you're doing.
This applies here in that there are two albums called Black Sabbath. The Black Sabbath we all have in our head that's heavier than everything released until 1982, which is really just the first song, and then the other Black Sabbath, which has that and then far more psychedelic music flow throughout it. I don't need to explain the former album, even if you haven't listened to Black Sabbath its the exact thing you have in your head from reputation or the album cover, it's the latter that needs explaining. The album minus the title track.
While the album is very heavy for 1970 it is not so out of place for the most part. Other bands occasionally reached the heaviness on one or more tracks an album. Basically every single distinct song on this album is at least a bit metal. The key word is distinct song. There is a lot of more jam session-esque pieces on the album bridging songs. Not Dream Theater, more Grateful Dead. An almost ambient backing, carrying the dark mood far more than most metal bands would do afterwards.
In this regard, no one imitating the band has gotten close to them. It's very easy to imitate the heavy sound these guys had, but it's another to imitate the whole package. To start off with something that sounds like it should be playing over the apocalyptic wastes before switching to a heavier version of '60s bluesy rock instrumental. To not make it sound forced or obviously distinct, but for it to just be. Not their doom metal imitators, nor their occult rock imitators. Even my personal candidate for the band carrying on the original Sabbath spirit, Ningen Isu, only ever get as far as imitating most of their elements. If metal is defined as imitating Sabbath, metal has failed.
This is back in the days when Ozzy still sounded weird and alien, rather than a coked out methhead behind a 7/11. You get some strange contrasts. On The Wizard, despite sounding dark and depressing, comes off as oddly upbeat which by all accounts should come off as deeply sarcastic. Especially since the album ends with a song in which he laments about a love he never had. It's one of those things that happens because this is the era where a band doing X genre absolutely must do so and so lyrically.
Sabbath's debut is just as unique now as it was originally. Did it invent heavy metal? Basically, but it's not just that, and that's why 50 years down the line it's worth listening to even as probably millions have imitated it in some way.

For the past decade or so, black metal releases have come at the rate of three to four thousand a year and a significant number of these are, to be frank, sub-standard efforts. Atmospheric, dissonant and avant-garde sub-genres are in the ascendancy and a vociferous portion of fans seem to want metal bands to be forever pushing the envelope. Within this landscape I, for one, am glad there are still bands, like Spectral Wound, that hark back to the genre's early nineties beginnings and understand that it is still possible to produce black metal that has actual tunes, whilst not compromising on the visceral savagery that is at the heart of it's ethos.

I was a big fan of the Quebecois five-piece's previous album, 2021's A Diabolic Thirst, so I was already well predisposed to their latest. Since A Diabolic Thirst there has been one personnel change, with Sean Zumbusch being replaced by Cauchemar bassist, Andres Arango, on second guitar. Even so, Spectral Wound haven't missed a step and time will tell, but I believe Songs of Blood and Mire is the band's best work to date, sounding like the product of a band who are supremely confident in their ability to deliver their vision faultlessly. Their songwriting is pretty much flawless, with well-written riffs that have an inherent memorability, yet which still project an icy savagery that belies their melodicism. Vocalist Jonah Campbell possesses a vitriolic shriek that doubles-down on the instrumental viciousness and ensures that there is no misconception about just how blasphemic these guys are. There are some nice tempo changes, from Celtic Frost-inspired chuggy slower sections to full-on, blistering, blastbeat-led, sharp-edged charges and brief black 'n' roll outbursts, rendering any possible accusations of saminess invalid. The lyrical content is almost gothic, but very black metal, concerning as it does, the occult predilections of the protagonist, who comes across like a fallen knight of old whose pursuit of forbidden knowledge has damned his soul. Technically, all five seem, to my untrained ears at least, to be exceedingly proficient with never a missed beat or note to be found anywhere.

The whole album feels very heavy for black metal, more akin to death metal in the heaviness stakes, whilst still unashamedly residing in the black metal realm. The production may have something to do with this heaviness as it is quite robust and deep, like a full-bodied red wine and it veers away from the thin, lo-fi sound you may normally expect with similar material, which works exceedingly well here. The production also plays no favourites, a crystal clarity and with all the band members being well-represented in the mix each has ample opportunity to shine.

I have to say, I am especially impressed by Songs of Blood and Mire. I was honestly starting to believe that black metal's best releases were all firmly in the past, but these guys have thankfully showed me the errors of such defeatist thinking and proved that the heart of black metal is still capable of pumping icy blood into the veins of the world's metal hordes even in these anodyne, corporation-dominated times. Come, enter the crypt and be saved.

When Make Them Suffer started releasing some new singles with their new keyboardist/co-lead vocalist Alex Reade, replacing Booka Nile who left due to abuse allegations, they were some of the best, most kick-A singles I've ever heard from this band's new era. Even my brother likes a couple of those singles. They really made me look forward to their self-titled album, and it has all the greatness I hoped for!

Formed in 2008 in Perth, Australia, Make Them Suffer has had such a powerful evolution that has never worn down. Beginning with pre-Lorna Shore epic deathcore in their glorious debut Neverbloom, they've gotten less deathly and more melodic over the years. With their brand-new self-titled album, their successful journey continues.

The intro "The Warning" has climatic choral vocals leading into industrial synths. Then it blasts into the grinding guitar grooves of "Weaponized". The chorus is where you first get to the beautiful cleans of Alex Reade, greatly balanced with the unclean growls of Sean Harmanis. The sky is the limit, and they made it higher with a lot to expect in this album. "Oscillator" is another kick-A track worth headbanging to. This and "Doomswitch" really make my day, the latter being a f***ing masterpiece of a banger!

As with some of the other tracks here, "Mana God" has Harmanis growling the song title as early as the intro. The modern downtuned metalcore is displayed in reckless abandon, with not many clean melodic moments in this track. The growling power of Harmanis is backed up by some additional screams from Reade. The pause on the usual structure helps cut down on the repetition and makes you remember how enjoyable this album is. "Epitaph" kicks things up h*lla hard. Reade has more of the divine spotlight in "No Hard Feelings". The heaviness is toned down slightly for some lovely melody, while staying fast and killer. Harmanis continues his harsh screams while also offering some gruff singing behind Reade. They both might make the best metal vocal duo of the year alongside Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda and Emily Armstrong!

Then Reade is out and Harmanis is in all the way in "Venusian Blues". His clean singing doesn't catch my attention as much as Reade does, but he easily show his different techniques in more ways than vocalists in other bands. The technical instrumentation will make sure you don't stop listening. "Ghost of Me" is a well-done standout single with amazing lyrics! Sean's incredible vocals help maintain the band's bad-a** single streak. We have more of the band's signature in heaviness in "Tether". Finally, "Small Town Syndrome" ends the album with the best the band has to offer. Not just from the two vocalists, but also the impressive instrumentalists that help run the machine.

Make Them Suffer are at the top of their game once again, helped out by Alex Reade, who has never given up after her previous band Drown This City fell apart. This album is the most incredible one by Make Them Suffer since Neverbloom, and even the mundane verse-chorus structure has some variation. They're back and stronger than ever!

Favorites: "Weaponized", "Doomswitch", "Mana God", "No Hard Feelings", "Ghost of Me", "Small Town Syndrome"

Not these guys again...

There was a time in my youth when I'd have loved the quirkiness of a band like Primus. With their obscure sense of humour and their blend of rock and funk, there's truly no other band like them. But what makes them so unique is also what pretty much puts so many people off of them.

And to put it bluntly, it's mostly boring self-indulgence.

While the musicians themselves are all incredibly talented, and certainly adept at thinking outside the box, the music itself is very hard to follow, and definitely requires the listener to be equally open-minded. There's very little singing, with vocalist Les Claypool preferring more of a spoken-word type of vocal style, and a lot of the music itself tends to plod along with no real memorable melodies that stick out. As a whole, it's just a complete mess.

If I had to pick out some highlights, it'd have to be 'Tommy the Cat' and 'Jerry Was a Race Car Driver', most probably because these are the notable singles from the album, and while they do have some infectious grooves in the music, as per usual with this band, the spoken babble that is the lyrics kind of ruins them.

I'm sure there was a time when I loved this band, especially as I seem to recall asking for some of their albums as Christmas and Birthday presents in my early twenties. But I listen to 'Sailing the Seas of Cheese' now and it bores the life out of me. Primus really are in a league all of their own when it comes to "keeping an open mind", sadly, it's just not a very good one.

It would be an absolute understatement to say that Primus is an acquired taste. Their music is incredibly obscure, with some of the most random musical passages and the most quirky lyrics you could think of. And so it is, that their debut album is a convoluted mess of ideas thrown together with no real sense of direction, other than being random for random’s sake.

While the musical ability between all the members is of a high calibre, especially bassist, singer and all-round main man Les Claypool (story goes that he was once turned down to join Metallica for being "too good"), the general compositions seem rather unfocused and boring. Nothing really stands out in this 52-minute smorgasbord of random guitar riffs and vocal melodies, which usually are delivered via something more akin to talking or just completely random noises.

If I really had to pick out any notable highlights, 'John the Fisherman', 'Too Many Puppies' and 'To Defy the Laws of Tradition' could be considered alright, but honestly, this album as a whole just gets rather boring and repetitive fast. I'm sure there are people that love songs that randomly go into renditions of 'Humpty Dumpty', but to me, it's just not cool, it's not funny, and it's not really all that clever either.

Ufomammut's fifth album, Eve, is, essentially, a single suite made up of five parts, with a total runtime of 45 minutes and is a concept album centred on the Fall of Man as Adam's wife, Eve, was tempted by a serpent to persuade her husband that they should eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, resulting in their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. I am a massive fan of the italian trio and I will lay it out up front, this 2010 album is my favourite release of theirs.

Ufomammut have always really been about atmosphere rather than "songs". Their space-rock influenced, psychedelic, sludgy doom metal is ever an experience and a sensation rather than an invitation to sing or hum along with the band. The band's inate heaviness registers nearly as high on the tactile scale as it does on the sonic, it's lower registers being felt almost as keenly as heard. Well, on Eve they achieve an even deeper level of atmosphere creation by introducing tropes derived from atmospheric sludge practitioners like Neurosis and Cult of Luna. This takes the form of tracks that begin deceptively serenely, building intensity, layer on layer, often accompanied by spacey, electronic flourishes until reaching a critical mass and achieving cathartic climax by exploding into roars of thundering downtuned bliss.

The opening section is a 14-minute prime example of this and is probably my favourite Ufomammut track. It builds gently, but inexorably, with an almost mystic, ritualistic, eastern vibe which may or may not have been the inspiration for the track "Pearl Snake" on Hexer's 2017 debut album Cosmic Doom Ritual, before erupting in a bassy roar, complete with bludgeoning drumming and a feedback-drenched guitar lead. As this chaos subsides we enter part II, which is another builder, but this time the build-up involves a repetitive three-note piano theme, accompanied by crashing cymbals and brooding synths that is sinister and faintly disturbing in a being-stalked-by-a-masked-killer kind of way. After this second part has reached it's apex, however, it doesn't subside into part three, but this short section doubles-down on the heaviness of the previous part's climax with a thunderous riff, accompanied by theremin-like synths and a distant roaring vocal decrying the horror of the original couple's act of defiance.

A further short section follows with a throbbing riff and ethereal voices that travel from speaker to speaker as if blowing in the aether, eventually giving way to a howling guitar solo as, presumably, the miscreant pair pay the price for the betrayal of their god. The closing section of Eve is another longer track, over thirteen minutes, that treads a now familiar furrow with a fairly repetitive and lumbering riff, once more accompanied by theremin-like cosmic airs, which eventually subside, leaving the simplistic riff to gain weight and transform into a thundering colossus which picks up pace as it becomes a maelstrom of violence as the couple pay the price for their folly and are ejected from The Garden, closing the album with a riotous and impressively heavy coda.

I like the implementation of the concept here, with the music interpreting the tale in an accessible manner without resorting to lengthy reams of lyrical verbiage, in fact the amount of vocals is very small indeed with the total lyrics for the whole album amounting to less than twenty lines, so the story never gets in the way of the music. The building of intensity and atmosphere that the band have introduced from atmo-sludge fits their style of ultra-heavy psychedelic metal to a tee and sees the band take a step up in quality as a a result here, I believe. Eve is basically a stoner's wet dream of repetition, heavy distortion and spacey electronic touches that, if I were so inclined, would have me reaching for the nearest available bong in celebration of it's awesomeness.

A Harsh Duet

Lacuna Coil have turned into one of those bands from my early music listening that I've come to regret somewhat. It's not that I was ever a massive fan or anything, it's just that their 2002 album Comalies gave me a bit of false hope that persisted for much too long. Comalies still holds up to me as an interesting and dreamy set of Gothic tinged Metal that has a very unique feel and atmosphere to it that, while not superb, hasn't been replicated too often. From then on, however, Lacuna Coil have wandered down the straight and narrow Alternative Metal path which is filled with straightforward songwriting and generic djenty chugs that have been done a million times over. Starting with Dark Adrenaline in 2012 they've found their formula and stuck with it to a ton of commercial success, but I can't say it does much for a seasoned listener who still insists on checking to see if this band decided to go back to their original, more unique sound. 

Despite frontwoman Cristina Scabbia being the main draw for most, Black Anima is much more of a duet between her and bassist Andrea Ferro as they trade back and forth much more often than in previous albums. Ferro's vocals are also much more harsh centric, with his growls not sounding half bad with Lacuna Coil's heavier and more chug-centric approach this time around. While he's known for his awkward and divisive crooning, Black Anima has sidelined it to a few short moments in "Sword of Anger" and "Veneficium", replacing it with surprisingly inoffensive growls and fried cleans that compliment the heavier riffing style much better than his old standard. Scabbia proves to still be a Swiss army knife in the vocal department, swapping between forceful Power Metal like leads on "Sword of Anger", a more classic and gothic delivery on "Black Anima", and even tries her hand at a more screamy angle on the chuggy "Now or Never". Lacuna Coil were definitely going for a heavier album this time around so the bouncing between harsh and clean works in its favor, something I'm all too familiar with from other female fronted bands. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the two work together given how rough Ferro's vocals have been in the past, so that shows some massive growth for the band, especially this late in their career. Despite generic nature of the harshes, the interplay between the two is easily the highlight of the album as they do a great job of carrying the energy of each track. 

Sadly that's about the only positive thing I have to say about this album, as the rest of the package falls in some sort of gray area between acceptably generic and downright boring. I can respect Lacuna Coil for trying to dial up the heaviness by incorporating djent-y chugs and even some Metalcore sounding snippets in tracks like "Now or Never" and the beginning of "Layers of Time", but most of the riffs end up falling flat due to being simple and unremarkable or just buried behind the wildly mixed drums and bass. It's just a guess, but it seems like they wanted to have a super punchy and rhythmic mix, but the unison chugs are about the only thing that sound cohesive on the album. The kick drum and bass are blown out to the point where they overtake pretty much every riff, with the bass being scratchy and overpowering in more sweeping sections like on "Now Or Never". Don't get me wrong, I'm a bass enjoyer, but even I was a bit taken aback when the djent chug was completely taken over by the bass throughout most of the album. I can commend Lacuna Coil for taking their style to the more extreme end as I don't think this album is entirely bad, but it leaves much to be desired apart from the admittedly interesting vocals. I'm glad that Ferro stepped up his game in order to be a worthy duet to Scabbia, but it feels like the rest of the band didn't catch the memo as the entire album consists of tracks that are varying degrees of fine and somewhat interesting for a few sections. 

The Wandering Midget were a finnish three-piece, formed in 2005 and split in 2020, who played traditional doom metal very much in similar vein to Reverend Bizarre. In fact, guitarist and vocalist Samuel Wormius has a voice that is remarkably similar to RB's Albert Witchfinder, making the comparison even more pertinent. The Serpent Coven marks the band's debut full-length, released in 2008 and comprises a short intro and five fairly lengthy tracks, clocking in between eight and thirteen minutes, so not as monolithically drawn out as Reverend Bizarre were often wont to be, but long enough to provide the full doom metal experience.

Fuzzy, crawling riffs, accompanied by glacial drum patterns and rumbling bass lines are the order of the day here. B-movie lyrics of the occult and monsters, both Lovecraftian and classic, tread the well-worn path of traditional doom metal lyrical tropes, delivered in an unfussy, basic style familiar to fans of finnish doom metal. The Serpent Coven's sluggish, Sabbathian-derived riffs ooze from the speakers with the implacable ponderousness of lava and the weight of mountains, delivering the goods for any doom metal junkie looking for another fix of the drug that had had it's supply cut off with RB's demise the year before. No marks for originality I'm afraid, but the tracks are well put together with some nice tempo changes, the rhythm section's work is simple, but effective and Wormius delivers some pretty good solos which stops the tracks from becoming too monolithic, all of which makes for a high quality doom metal release in my book.

And that is all there is to it, really. If you have ever heard Reverend Bizarre and thought "I like this but why do the tracks have to be so damned long", then The Wandering Midget may well appeal to you. If RB never floated your boat in any way then there's little chance these guys will either. For me, this delivers exactly what I look for in traditional doom metal and is an uncomplicated slab of metal that summons forth primal forces and allows my mind to drift and wallow in the album's slothful heaviness.

It's been interesting to revisit the (alleged) third album from Melbourne hardcore punks Vicious Circle after so many years this week because it immediately raised some with me about its legitimacy as a genuine album. I don't recall having these thoughts when I first encountered the album as a teenager but it very soon became obvious that 1987's "Rhyme with Reason" record was more of a compilation of previously available material than it was the brand-new record that the vast majority of internet resources seem to have blindly taken it for. Those critics have clearly never heard Vicious Circle's 1986 "Reflections" album though as ten of the thirteen tracks included on "Rhyme with Reason" were taken from that record. Another (i.e. experimental post-punk song "Nightmare So Quick") has been borrowed from 1986's "Hidden-Supervision?" single too so fans of Vicious Circle's previous work should be aware of that before running off to purchase the vinyl at great expense. I could only really identify one short line that read "Note that 'Rhyme With Reason' was in part a compilation of material that had previously been issued in the Australian market" on the Discogs page for the release which confirmed my suspicions that these tracks are in fact the same versions that can be found on the disappointing "Reflections". That doesn't make "Rhyme with Reason" a redundant release though. On the contrary, it makes "Reflections" one as "Rhyme with Reason" manages to rectify some of the flaws in Vicious Circle's sophomore album by omitting a couple of the weaker songs that I felt tarnished it. It also adds a couple of fairly raw new tracks that we hadn't heard from the band before, admittedly with mixed results though to be fair.

As with Vicious Circle's earlier releases, I really struggle with the idea of "Rhyme with Reason" having much to do with the crossover thrash tag it so often seems to attract. There's really only a single track included that fits that mold in the new song "Turn to Stone" which is also one of the two weaker numbers that form an unfortunate mid-album quality dip with the other being the heavy metal/hard rock number "Hope & Wait" which I didn't enjoy much on "Reflections" either. The vast majority of the album still falls into hardcore punk territory although I'd suggest that there is enough conventional punk rock in brand-new opening track "Rule 17" & closer "Inside Operation" for it to be claimed as an influence, along with post-punk which shows its head on "Nightmare So Quick" & a good chunk of "Inside Operation" too. There's a touch less of the experimentation that was attempted on "Reflections" with "Rhyme with Reason" feeling a little more traditional in terms of hardcore punk, mainly because of the omission of the title track from "Reflections" which was overly long & also pretty awful to be fair.

"Rhyme with Reason" doesn't possess too much in the way of highlights but the vast majority of the material is enjoyable enough. As with "Reflections", the excellent hardcore punk tune "Mass Confusion" once again represents the clear high point of the record for me & it's a shame that none of the other material could match it because there was a fair bit of potential in some of these tracks. As it stands though, "Rhyme with Reason" ends up being another pretty enjoyable hardcore record from Vicious Circle but, as with their earlier releases, it still hasn't managed to become one that I can see myself returning to in the future. Even though I quite like it, I do tend to find myself favouring Vicious Circle's earlier material over "Rhyme with Reason" with their earliest demo recordings still offering me the most in terms of appeal. "The Price of Progress" is my preference of their first three full-length albums (if we're gonna include "Rhyme with Reason" as one of those like the rest of the internet seems to). Still, I can't deny the relevance of this record in terms of the band's overall discography as I'd highly recommend that you skip "Reflections" altogether & go direct to the stronger "Rhyme with Reason" if you're hellbent on exploring the Melbourne punks back catalogue.

For fans of early Permanent Damage, Condemned? & Depression.

I feel like I often have to preface all my Iced Earth reviews with an explanation of how they’re a band I genuinely love, but find their discography to be very, very inconsistent. For every absolute banger that they release, there’s a dud. Albums like ‘Iced Earth’, ‘Night of the Stormrider’, ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ and ‘The Glorious Burden’ all rank among some of my all-time favourite power metal albums. But then, as seems to be the pattern, here we have, what I feel is a bit of a dud.

With ‘Framing Armageddon: Something Wicked Pt. 1’, Jon Schaffer and co. revisit their most popular release, with a two-part concept album that builds upon 1998’s ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. Which is all fine in theory, but something about this just doesn’t resonate with me.

And it’s a huge shame, because predecessor ‘The Glorious Burden’, which saw the debut of powerhouse vocalist Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens, was a stellar release, and really put Iced Earth back on track, only to, as always, take another step back. And why? There’s nothing overly wrong with this album, but then, there’s just not really anything memorable about it, either. Other than a few snippets here and there, the only song that really sticks out is the albums lead single, ‘Ten Thousand Strong’, a short, punchy track that delivers power metal greatness in four minutes.

Other than that, the playing is of a high standard as always, and Tim Owens’ vocals are always a pleasure to listen to, but overall, I just find myself zoning out every time I try to get into this album. Perhaps it’s the rehashing of the ‘Something Wicked’ storyline (which, for the record, I have no inkling what any of it is about!), but this album just doesn’t work for me.

Sorry, Iced Earth.

Detaching From Satan was Paul Chain's first release following his split from the legendary Death SS and was a four-track EP with Chain writing the songs, playing guitar and organ and performing vocals, helped out by drummer Enrico Giampaoli and bassist Paolo Giannotti. After an organ and sound effects intro, "Occultism" kicks off with a doomy Sabbathian riff, heavily informed by the NWOBHM, so having a quite rock-y feel to it. In it's mid-section Chain's guitar lead takes over and we are treated to an extended solo before things get back on track. I actually quite enjoy Chain's singing here, but I can understand why others may struggle with it as it is very reedy and he certainly isn't the most gifted vocalist in the world, yet I feel it really suits the lo-fi aesthetic and general weird vibe of the EP.

"Armageddon" is up next and after a quite substantial, choral, hymn-like intro, we are treated to another terrific, pounding riff that Witchfinder General would have been proud to have written, followed by another display of Chain's demented guitar shredding. "Voyage to Hell" follows a similar template, but here the vocals sound even more demented as Chain tries to add a harsher edge to his singing performance and often sounds genuinely unhinged. Closer "17 Day" is the EP's longest track, running for just short of eight minutes and here his vocals are probably least weird-sounding with him lowering his register a bit and even sounding almost normal. After two or three minutes, an eerie organ interlude insinuates itself into the track, acting as prelude to another extended solo as Chain allows himself to let it all hang out with a climactic ending.

So, this neat 19 minute EP is quite effective as a calling card for Paul Chain as if he is "putting himself into the shop window", so to speak, after his departure from Death SS. His catchy riffs and dextrous guitar solos are the main raison d'etre of these four tracks and I think it also does a good job of displaying Chain's quirky character. I like this quite a lot and it is an interesting release in the development of doom metal, particularly in his home country of Italy and shows the guy as an intriguing character having a quite singular style.

I have never made any secret of the fact that Windhand are my favourite female-fronted metal band and are also one of my favourite stoner doom bands, full-stop. My introduction to them actually began with their sophomore, the excellent Soma, and it wasn't until a year or two later that I tuned this, their debut in, finaly scoring a CD copy from Bandcamp after hearing Winter Sun on the band's Live at Roadburn album. Released in 2012, the debut followed a two-track practice space demo from 2010, which contained my two favourites from the debut, which also bookend the album, the opener "Black Candles" and closer and the previously mentioned, "Winter Sun".

From the very earliest days, it seems that Windhand were a band who knew exactly what they were about and the sort of sound that they were looking for. That sound is characterised by plodding, dirge-like, distorted riffs that still contain a melodic sensibility, psychedelia-tinged solos, distant, soaring female vocals that seem as if heard on the wind or in a dream and an esoteric and occult vibe. These traits are certainly in evidence here in spades on their first official release and provide the foundation and launchpad for a climb to the summit of the stoner doom mountain. Each of the five tracks on Windhand begin in a very similar manner, with a crawling bassline which is then joined by the heavily distorted main riff and hard-hitting drumbeats, followed shortly after by Dorthea Cottrell's ethereal, ghost-like vocals.

Despite the heaviness that the band generate, Windhand are still very melodic, with both the riffs and Dorthea's vocal lines being really memorable, in a still-humming-it-several-hours-later kind of way. Being a child of the late-60's and 70's I really love the retro guitar solos from guitarists Garrett Morris and ex-Alabam Thunderpussy six-string slinger, Asechiah Bogdan, both of whose swirling leadwork is heavily tinged with psychedelic tendencies. The rhythm work of bassist Nathan Hilbish and drummer Ryan Wolfe, who was previously drummer with sludge / hardcore crew, Facedowninshit, is the slow-drying glue that holds everything together, anchoring the ponderous doom-laden atmosphere that allows the guitarists to take off on their sonic flights of fancy without trading-in any of the album's inate heaviness and providing the counter to Dorthea's light and airy vocals.

Sure, this style of female-led occult doom has now become a little bit old hat now, with a seeming small army of such bands abounding, but Windhand were one of those who first took the psychedelic occult vibe of early-70's acts like Coven or Black Widow and marrying it to the punishing, dirge-like riffs of Sleep or Electric Wizard to produce this modern occult doom sound. That, and they do it so much better than everyone else. Need proof? Two words - "Winter Sun".

As far as melodic death metal albums go, I have found a lot more time for Goliath than I would normally afford anything else from this sub-genre. Having never seen the appeal of Kataklysm from any of my previous connections with their discography (was Sorcery really that good guys??) it was odd that I ended up drawn in on their fifteenth outing. It could be that the more groove metal moments are slightly more relevant given my ongoing exploration of that sub-genre via the Clan Challenge. Tracks like Gravestones & Coffins, with its infectious riff is one of the standout tracks for me on this record but there is nothing remarkable about any aspect of Goliath overall.

After multiple listens, I have concluded that Goliath is a bit dull. However, I still find myself coming back to it, as if the background music qualities of the record somehow cannot be denied. Having taken the time to try and understand which primitive aspect of my musical nature the record appeals to, I realised that the record is nothing short of a riff-fest. Upon my sixth or seventh listen it dawned on me that the record has no lead or solo work whatsoever. Its ten tracks rely solely on chugging and groovy riffs backed by a solid if not unremarkable percussion section. With a clumsy vocal delivery to boot, Goliath is a classic smash and grab melo-death album.

Those stabbing riffs that permeate the verses, (keeping the momentum going very well it must be noted still) give way to rolling slabs of groovy and sometimes less urgent moments that somehow manage to be relevant even when they appear to be slightly out of time on occasion. I would suggest that the lack of thought around pacing is one of the albums weaker points overall. When they do get it right (Bringer of Vengeance) it works well but it is inconsistent at best throughout the record.

To go more than three tracks on any melo-death album is an achievement for me but to last for ten without their being any solo work is just a bridge too far for me. Goliath plays as a record that tells me nothing about the band. It is ten tracks that mostly sound the same and what little glimpses of variety I do get are just not doing anything to separate Kataklysm from the rest of the field. It is memorable and slightly addictive but for all the wrong reasons in the end.

Smoulder are a five-piece formed in 2013 and centred around married couple, guitarist Shon Vincent and vocalist Sarah Ann. Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring marked the band's debut full-length and followed their well-received three-track demo, The Sword Woman, which supplied two of the six tracks featured here.

Musically the album skirts the border between epic doom and good, old-fashioned heavy metal, tinged with a pinch of USPM. They lean more towards the triumphal heroicism of Solstice's brand of epic doom rather the more mournful laments of, say, Solitude Aeternus with the tempos of most of the tracks edging towards the pacier end of the doom metal arsenal, never really dropping to the ploddingly mournful pacing more common of most doom metal albums. The downtuned guitar and meaty bottom end still sit this within the doom metal sphere, though, with only a couple of tracks, "Bastard Steel" and "Voyage of the Sunchaser", edging into heavy or power metal territory and both of which are riotous, fist-pumping headbangers. The riffs on display throughout are solid and project vitality, power and strength, whether galloping at pace or hulking at a more sedate pace. The riffs are more than capably bolstered by a tight-knit rhythm section of drummer Kevin Hester and bassist Adam Blake, both of whose work is neat and effective. The leadwork of both Shon Vincent and second guitarist Collin Wolf is confidently done, with some fine solos that are expressive and exhilharating without ever leaning towards the self-indulgent.

Inevitably, though, the main focus of attention is going to be vocalist Sarah Ann Kitteridge whose powerful pipes are perfectly suited to the more epic style that Smoulder are going for. Like a female Messiah Marcolin, her voice soars above the instrumentation, demanding the attention of the listener. This is no slight on the rest of the band members, but her voice does project such irresistible power that it is impossible for it not to become the focus and luckily she has the talent to carry off such a central role, never wavering or losing pitch which, unfortunately, I hear all too often nowadays from vocalists operating outside their capabilities.

The songwriting is generally of a high quality and is split between most of the band members, with only Adam Blake not contributing, which allows for some nice variation, yet illustrates the band's unity of vision as the tracklisting is very consistent. Lyrically, they fall back on the well-worn metal trope of sword and sorcery epic fantasy storytelling for the most part, with opener, "Ilian of Garathorm" delving into an old epic metal staple, Michael Moorcock's world of Elric and The Eternal Champion.

Overall this is a well-executed slab of triumphalistic metal that reaches back to the earlier days of the genre, yet is still refreshingly exciting and vital and should appeal to anyone who still loves the power and glory of epic metal storytelling.

If you do a bit of research into the history of thrash metal in my home country of Australia, you'll often find yourself being told that Melbourne's Renegade represent band one in that story as they were reportedly first formed all the way back in 1982. I've never bought into that opinion personally as the evidence simply doesn't stack up. I'm not denying that Renegade were probably around as early as any other band that would go on to play extreme metal over time but if you follow the early "recorded" history of Aussie thrash fairly closely you'll soon start to question the timeline for when Renegade first transitioned into a genuine thrash band as their 1985 demo tape is more of a speed metal release than it is a thrash one with the heavy metal influence still a little too prominent for genuine thrash status. The song "Black Ritual" certainly proved that they had it in them but we'd have to wait until 1987 to see them finally taking that potential & turning it to reality with their sole album "Total Armageddon", a record that has gone down in Aussie metal folklore as a seriously important release in the grand scheme of extreme metal in this country. I can't stress enough how highly regarded it was by older metalheads when I first entered the scene in the late 1980's & early 1990's & can recall many a drunken night of air guitar & backyard moshing while accompanied by its charms. Let's take a look at it in a little more depth today & see if it holds up against the legend that surrounds it.

While the authenticity of Renegade's 1985 demo tape as a genuine thrash release is questionable at best, the same cannot be said of "Total Armageddon" as it's a total thrashfest with each of the eight songs included sitting very comfortably under a thrash tag. The album was recorded with producer Bruce Johnston at Melbourne's Jam Tin Studios some time in 1986 with Johnston's only other notable metal credit coming in the form of the 1987 "Warlords album from relatively unknown Melbourne heavy metal outfit S.A.S. Johnston's plays an important role here though as "Total Armageddon" beautifully harnesses the raw energy of Renegade at the time while allowing all instruments to maintain complete clarity throughout. I would suggest that the cover artwork has also played some sort of role in the records success with the image of VB-drinking devil aligning fairly closely with many Aussie metalhead's ideals back in the late 1980's.

"Total Armageddon" is a consistently fast record that barely takes its foot off the accelerator or stop for a breath at any point. Many of the more up-tempo riffs remind me a lot of Metallica's "Kill 'Em All" album while the moments when Renegade do tone the velocity back a bit seem to have been heavily influenced by classic Slayer & Mercyful Fate which can't be a bad thing now, can it? Front man Johnny Beer possesses a raspy delivery that reminds me more of Teutonic thrash acts like Destruction than it does the Americans & his performance here is an important ingredient in the overall appeal of a record like this one as he does an excellent job at calling Renegade's fanbase to arms while also separating the band from the more traditional heavy metal acts that had surrounded them for the majority of their existence to the time. Bassist Steve Scott (who would also appear on Hobbs Angel of Death's self-titled demo tape later the same year) puts in a great performance with his basslines being easily heard throughout the entire album. This most certainly isn't a terribly ambitious album from an instrumental point of view though as there's nothing you haven't heard before & the riff structures do tend to be quite simple but it's all executed with a clear understanding of what made 1980's thrash so great so there's nothing to complain about for fans of that era. The rare moments of experimentation (such as the acoustic guitar section in "Lucifer's Reign") are done very well & provide a nice contrast to the aggressive tremolo-picked speed metal riffs that make up the remainder of the record so it's pretty clear that Renegade had paid their dues & were very much a well-oiled machine by this stage of their evolution. Drummer Mick Scott is probably the weaker component of the band though as his kick drum work isn't as tight as the true masters of the genre. I really dig it when he goes for a driving Charlie Benante-style beat during the more ballsy parts of the album though & he displays good restraint during the chuggy halftime parts too.

The tracklisting offers great consistency with no weak songs included in the eight on offer. The title track is the clear standout in my opinion though as it reminds me of the unbridled aggression that the Teutonic thrash scene had built its reputation on. A couple of tracks from Renegade's 1985 demo tape ("Black Ritual" & "Lucifer's Reign") have been revisited with the latter being a stronger & more muscular effort than the original. While few listeners will deny that "Total Armageddon" is a thrash release, the speed metal sound that dominated the demo tape is still evident in the high velocities & uncluttered tremolo-picked riff structures which are well supported by Johnston's production job which helps to keep things sounding attractive & professional. All of this amounts to a more than decent thrash record that competes fairly well on a global scale but which no doubt threw a fairly nasty cat amongst the pigeons as far as the local scene went as I don't think that Australia had seen a release of this intensity before, at least not one in a proper album format. Renegade's role in Australian thrash cannot be denied in this respect & it's not hard to see why the old-schoolers are still waxing lyrical about it either.

For fans of Tyrus, classic Slayer & "Kill 'Em All"-period Metallica.

Slomatics are a little-known doom metal three-piece from Belfast in Northern Ireland who formed in 2004. As well as their seven full-length albums they have featured on a slew of splits with the likes of Conan and MWWB, so have certainly been around the block a few times, despite making little impact outside of the hardcore doom metal fraternity. Estron was the band's fourth full-length, released in 2014 and, for me, still ranks as their best.

The album is a concise affair, it's seven tracks clocking in at 37 minutes, which is fairly brief for this style of doom metal. It kicks off with a great one-two punch of Troglorite and Tunnel Dragger the former of which runs straight into the latter, denying any respite from the looming, thunderous riffs. It is worth pointing out at this point that the trio has two guitarists and no bassist, yet despite this there is still a huge depth to the distorted riffs and the lack of a bassist is not readily apparent. The vocals are provided by drummer Martin Harvey and are quite thin and reedy, pushed down in the mix to give that distant, heard-on-the-wind kind of feeling that is quite popular in some corners of the doom world and of which I am quite a fan, actually. Harvey's drumming is also very good, with some busy fills and crashing cymbals aplenty, his work on "Futurian" illustrating this best. A feature that sets the band apart from most of their contemporaries is their sci-fi aesthetic which they express through the inclusion of spacey synths both within the tracks generally and in interlude, a trope that puts them more in-line with a band like Ufomammut than Monolord, despite being straight-up doomheads rather than stoners.

Side A, ie the first four tracks, continues in the relentlessly punishing mode of the two openers, providing little relief from it's menacing, booming riffs, other than a short synth-led breather during Tunnel Dragger. Side B is a bit different, featuring two longer tracks, bridged by a brief space ambient interlude called "Red Dawn", which is actually quite a soothing touch after all the sonic bombardment that had gone before it. Red Dawn's ambience leaks into the beginning of the album's longest track, the closer "The Carpenter" which I have seen touted as being about film director John Carpenter, which I would say is a good shout, because those first few minutes of the track come across very much like a John Carpenter soundtrack, which always had a very distinctive feel. Then, four minutes in, a huge, hulking riff kicks in and things get seriously heavy as the riff morph into a very close approximation to the famous riff from the track "Black Sabbath" with Harvey even begging "No, no,no..."

I love this album, I love the huge riffs, the distant-sounding vocals and the cosmic flourishes that lend it something a little different. It is eregiously heavy, yet still manages to turn in some nice melodies within the riffs that stop it becoming relentlessly monolithic. It manages to do something a little bit different whilst still sitting comfortably within the conventional doom metal template and, being quite short, it is never in danger of outstaying it's welcome.

The second full length album from Ukrainian black metal outfit, Labyrinthus Stellarum, is one of these projects that shows a lot of potential anchored by a unique sound. Vortex of the Worlds is the kind of pleasant sounding black metal album that traditionalists might scowl at. It reminds me of a more concise version of a Mare Cognitum album with great soundscapes and a keen ear for melodic storytelling. It does remind me in a way of the tendencies of bands like Burzum and Summoning with its synthesized tones and interludes rather than the relentless impulses of Vorga. But these sounds have been modernized and now carry with them a vastness of reverberation that sound gorgeous behind the vocals, and the wall of sound compositions. The one true weakness found within is the structure of the album; while I won't deny that "Transcendence" and "Downfall" are both pleasant sounding tracks, the real jewel's of Vortex of the Worlds are found in its second half, with "From the Nothingness" and "Vortex of the Worlds" being the obvious standouts with how wonderful the melodies are. Luckily, you won't have to wait very long for those songs since this albums runtime is almost criminally short. If the albums structure was more balanced (even without the inclusion of one additional track), this could have been one of 2024's best albums. But as it stands, it is still really great and would be a great addition to those craving another atmo-black band with dungeon synth incorporation.

Best Songs: Transcendence, From the Nothingness, The Light of Dying Worlds, Vortex of the Worlds

If you don't know what to expect from a new Ufomammut album by now, then you really haven't been paying attention. By this stage Ufomammut are a band who have a firmly established style and long ago perfected the recipe to deliver whatever they wish to express with their music, so if you haven't been seduced by the sounds this italian trio produce by now, then this won't do anything to change your opinion and you are probably best moving along.

So anyway, if you are still with me, Hidden is the Italians' eleventh full-length album and comprises six tracks of their trademark spacey, sludgy stoner metal. Blasting straight off with the ten-minute Crookhead, they make their intentions known with a mighty stoner riff that possesses a thundering roar usually only produced by a NASA rocket during take off. The key to Ufomammut's sound is the extreme distortion applied to both six- and four-strings and the driving nature of the riffs and rhythm section that propel a huge wall of sound with an irresistible kineticism, perfectly illustrated here on the opener. Combine this with the restrained, washed-out vocals and the inclusion of an arsenal of electronic beeps and squiggles and you have an exceedingly effective metal approximation of a rocket journey through space, with old "Space Ritual"-era Hawkwind being a quite obvious influence. Yet, despite all the spacey, wacked-out, stoner vibes, Ufomammut are also ridiculously heavy and when they slow the tempo down, the seismic ripples they generate could topple office blocks. Just check out the middle heavy section of the otherwise creepy-sounding second track, "Kismet", if you need an illustration of just how ball-crushingly heavy the trio can be.

For me, the attraction of Ufomammut is that they are a band in whose album's I can lose myself and just mentally float, drinking in the cosmic atmosphere that they create without having to ponder the context or the nuances of what the band are trying to convey. The experience is the point with these Italians, not the need to marvel at their ingenuity or technical prowess and that really is the mark of success for any stoner-adjacent band, the ability to be able to transport the listener to an alternative state of being through the expression of their art and if that is how I am to judge them, then I would have to declare Hidden to be an unqualified success.

So I've already checked out and reviewed a few albums by Mechina, a band known for its epic symphonic cyber metal sound and expanding conceptual saga throughout albums and singles. But the question is, what were they like before they started adding in those aspects?

The Assembly of Tyrants was recorded and released in 2005, over 5 years before their second album Conqueror in which they started making their sound more cinematic and forming a massive story in the lyrics. I actually love the debut slightly better than the next 4 albums. This simple raw style of cyber metal in a similar vein as Fear Factory and Sybreed is not as overproduced as their bombastic later material. Although the saga was yet to be established, I can hear the story quite well in these lyrics!

Some of the heaviest bits of Fear Factory can be heard in the opening track "Shattered Cry", as early as that band's deathly debut Soul of a New Machine. It's a real shame about drummer Scott Oloier leaving the band, because his pummeling drum-work hits so hard. Drifting through this cosmic vortex is the dark growls of David Holch that enhance the well-thought lyrics. "Reclamation of Mortal Nature" proves that this band can sound killer even at a time before adding a bombastic truckload of symphonics and female vocals to their subsequent releases. Awesome, but I prefer the Tyrannical Resurrection version. That EP is where half the amount of the songs in the debut were re-recorded two years after. Next up, "Clash of Cultures" takes the atmospheric sorrow further. Holch has tried an earlier attempt to give his vocals a clean singing effect.

Attacking in different tempos is the long "Machine God". Then we head into one of two instrumentals, the electronic "Apothica". The next two tracks are from a couple of the band's earlier demos that basically the Fear Factory Concrete of Mechina, starting with "Skin Deep". The riffing by Joe Tiberi can things apart, alongside Holch's growls, "Draw thy weapon for pain, just for the kill". The other track "After Image" has Scott Oloier has his brother Jon (on bass) battling it out with the other guys' instrumental talents. The keyboards that are later proven to be performed by Tiberi fits smoothly with the aggressive instrumentation.

The second instrumental, "Assembly Intro" (also titled "Warfog") has some ambient serenity. The main part of the album ends with the 8-minute title epic. It's a true masterpiece highlight that greatly foreshadows what's to come later for this band. The bonus track "Clash YSAF mix" is an instrumental remix of "Clash of Cultures".

If there's anyone who, at the time of the debut's release, thought the band would go down the same path as Fear Factory and Sybreed, their second album Conqueror definitely says otherwise. Until then, The Assembly of Tyrants is essential cyber/industrial metal that anyone in The Sphere should get. Though if this dark futuristic sound had guitar solos and better production, it would've been 5-star perfection. Still it already displays Mechina's unique abilities. The best place to start before the bombastic rest!

Favorites: "Shattered Cry", "Reclamation of Mortal Nature", "Clash of Cultures", "Skin Deep", "The Assembly of Tyrants"

Following the good yet messy Empyrean, Xenon rises slightly higher with a better stylistic balance to prove the uniqueness of Mechina. And it can surpass Conqueror as well. Xenon continues to build up from what the band had in the previous two albums. As always, you can expect the djenty rhythms, keyboard melodies, and orchestral majesty, courtesy of Joe Tiberi. Plus some cool vocals, both clean and unclean. As much of a great achievement as this is, again the bombastic epicness tires me out...

It's not just the style that's more balanced, but also the production. The riffing machinery is taken to the front stage. Now you can hear the distorted grooves soar through the cosmos. Also appealing is the drumming by David Gavin. Sadly, he would leave the band after this album, and the drumming in all subsequent albums is programmed.

"Cepheus" is a bonus track in the Compendium edition of the album, and a pummeling 10-minute epic. It's my favorite track of the entire album and makes up for whatever mess the main album would have later, just like Empyrean's Compendium bonus track "Andromeda". It would be better if "Cepheus" was Xenon's ending or near-ending epic though. The title track that opens the main album is filled with f***ing underrated epic cinematic cyber metal to love! You can just imagine travelling through lightyears of space and centuries (even millennia) of time. But it can't work as an individual track when it segues straight to "Alithea". Then "Zoticus" marks another wonderful highlight, having a more upbeat tone compared to the rest of the album.

"Terrea", on the other hand, is rather terrible, going back to the messy side of the previous two albums. It is made up for by the glorious "Tartarus". You can swim through different dimensions ranging from cyber to deathly, as a saga unfolds, almost competing with Marvel, Star Wars, and even The Elder Scrolls. A truly dark ethereal collision! "Phedra" doesn't do much for the album, but I still approve. "Thales" is another brilliant standout. It can actually be enjoyed well as an individual track, with its more direct feel and not having to bleed into another track.

Going through "Erebus", there are female vocals and well-composed symphonics that you can hear in Nightwish. But it is blended with the metal heaviness that brings things closer to Xerath. A true theatrical gift! "Amyntas" is kind of a weak track to segue into, though not really a stinker. Their attempt to go all-out The Amenta in their last full song doesn't work out as much as it should. Then it all ends in dark tranquility (not the band) in the outro "Actaeon", a nice reprise to the title track's piano intro.

Xenon has a lot for you to get used to, but eventually you can embrace this multi-track cyber metal symphony and remember the more impressive moments. Joe Tiberi continues to reign as a master of epic futuristic cyber metal, with more releases appearing throughout the next 10 years, to be heard through space and time....

Favorites: "Cepheus", "Xenon", "Zoticus", "Tartarus", "Thales", "Erebus"

The 1986 "Reflections" sophomore album from Melbourne hardcore punk crew Vicious Circle is another release that I picked up from the older skaters at my high school in the late 1980's & early 1990's along with several of the band's other releases. Those kids tended to gravitate towards thrash metal, crossover thrash & hardcore punk so I found myself pickup up some fairly underground shit from them but never spent much time in trying to genre tag most of it. We simply didn't give a fuck about that sort of thing back in the day & if it had good energy then I was generally up for it. Even if I maybe didn't know the technicalities of what defined those subgenres just yet, I could easily tell that the early Vicious Circle releases weren't exactly metal &, as with their 1985 debut album "The Price of Progress", I tended to toss "Reflections" aside fairly quickly in favour of the more metal releases of the time. With the discovery that other websites like RateYourMusic & Metal Archives deem Vicious Circle to be a metal band of some description though, I thought it was time to give "Reflections" another chance to win me over, this time with some more educated & experienced ears.

To be fair, the early Vicious Circle releases weren't terribly adventurous. Their sound tended to stick within the confines of the stock-standard hardcore punk model with little attempt to expand their sound being taken but 1986's "Hidden-Supervision?" single had seen the band starting to experiment a little. The A side "A Nightmare So Quick" took an acoustic guitar-driven post-punk direction while the B side "Viewing Time" qualifies as one of the very earliest Aussie crossover thrash tunes. "Reflections" saw Vicious Circle looking to continue to explore new territory while including enough of their classic hardcore material to keep their die-hard fans happy. This is perhaps its major weakness in many respects as it ends up satisfying neither camp & comes across as a little wishy washy when viewed holistically. The "Circle of the Doomed" & "Foolish Ideas" demo tapes & the debut album all offered enough aggression & youthful vitality to keep me interested throughout but "Reflections" tends to taint that strength with misguided attempts to do something fresh & new. The idea was admirable enough but I'm afraid the execution leaves a bit to be desired with front man Paul Lindsay making a meal of the tracks that required a little more nuance & subtlety.

It's an unusual album in some respects because the wins certainly outweigh the failures reasonably comfortably but the few duds included tend to be weak enough to taint the overall album. The obvious protagonist in bringing "Reflections" down is the lengthy post-punk centrepiece of a title track which is completely destroyed by Lindsay who fumbles his way through a strained & consistently pitchy performance over some quite interesting acoustic guitar work for far more time than was ever warranted. The more commercial hard rock sound of "Hope & Wait" didn't work for Vicious Circle either & there are a couple of conventional punk rock tunes included with mixed results too. "Under the Surface" simply sounds a bit flat to me while closer "Inside Operation" is actually a pretty reasonable way to finish the tracklisting. The material that offers me the most appeal can unsurprisingly be found in the more up-tempo & violent hardcore-oriented material with "Mass Confusion" being the clear highlight as far as I'm concerned.

"Reflections" isn't an awful record by any stretch of the imagination but it is a pretty forgettable one & I tend to think that it makes for better playlist material than it does an overall album. There are just too many flaws for it to work as an holistic package in my opinion & I definitely prefer "The Price of Progress" over it. In fact, I'd have to suggest that I'd take either of Vicious Circle's 1984 demo tapes over EITHER album to be honest. Is there any metal here though? Well... yeah, I'd suggest that opening track "Common Denominator" should qualify as speed metal interestingly enough. I don't think there's anything else here that sounds remotely metal though so I can't understand why anyone would be stretching the friendship far enough to drag "Reflections" into crossover thrash discussions. Give this one a miss & head back to Vicious Circle's 1984/85 releases if you're looking for some more than decent early Australian hardcore punk though gang.

For fans of early Depression, Condemned? & Permanent Damage.

Turmion Kätilöt is an amazing yet strange band of Finnish industrial metal. The lineup consists of talented members with funny stage names; vocalists MC Raaka Pee and Shag-U, guitarist Bobby Undertaker, bassist Master Bates, keyboardist RunQ, and drummer DQ. The lyrics can cover everything from sci-fi to beautiful girls. And the band have been on a roll throughout their tenure that has already reached 20 years! Yet I didn't get turned on by their music until last year.

Standing by in the category of bands that should've been accepted in the Metal Archives but aren't, their disco-fueled industrial metal sound shall please both club dancers and metalheads. Reset brings us back to the Spellgoth era in terms of the quality, not reaching the perfection of the albums afterwards, but still better than Perstechnique.

"Yksi Jumalista" (One of the Gods) begins with an Egyptian-sounding EDM intro before the hammering riffing. The vocals dance around the keyboards and guitars. The chorus maintains both the EDM vibe and that riff. The song is quite a fun bouncer, even with the strange lyrics. "Päästä Irti" (Get Loose) starts off almost deathly, and then it's time to dance again. The catchy energy can really kick things up a notch. D*mn, this can get the metal/dance crowd smiling. The metal guitars fit perfectly with them beats! "Pulssi" (Pulse) sounds a little closer to Mushroomhead at times, but the guitar solo brings it closer to Beast in Black, especially when it's that band's guitarist Kasperi Heikkinen who's performing it. "Sina 2.0" (You 2.0) heads into the electronic side of the band, with some guest vocals by Netta Turunen, daughter of MC Raaka Pee.

"Musta Piste" (Black Dot) brings back the perfect glory of the rest of the Shag-U era, specifically Universal Satan. Same with "Trauma", which has violent bursts of industrial metal to infect the EDM vibes. "Otava" (Big Dipper) once again has a bit of Mushroomhead, while also throwing some Fear Factory, Waltari, and even in the 8-bit synths of HORSE the Band, to make a unique combo. "Se Mitä Et Näe" (What You Don't See) has another brilliant sound from the start, with dark electronic synths that plague the industrial metal sound (in a great way), complete with a Rammstein-ish anthemic chorus. Not much disco, but the heavy riffing and electronics are in great balance.

"Once Dead" is OK, but not that interesting. Ditto with "Puuttuva Naula" (The Missing Nail), which is a little too poppy. It's the weakest song here, though not enough to be a stinker. Following this is "Schlachter" (Butcher), a wonderful remix of the debut's "Teurastaja", featuring Chris Harms of Lord of the Lost. I might just love it more than the original! Finally, we have the 8-minute "Reset 7 (Not to Be Continued)", which has nice dance-y industrial metal, but the Babymetal-like J-pop moments are a bit too much.

Wait a minute... "NOT to Be Continued"?! Is this awesome band going to end after this?!? I sure hope not! Reset has a lot of the band's catchy energy, apart from a couple odd but still good tracks towards the end. The band shall stay alive and continue making even the most serious headbanger dance and smile!

Favorites: "Päästä Irti", "Pulssi", "Musta Piste", "Otava", "Se Mitä Et Näe", "Schlachter"

Beorn's Hall is a USBM duo comprising multi-instrumentalist, Rognvaldr alongside drummer and vocalist, Vulcan and whatever you think of them, you have got to give them credit for the ambition of their songwriting. Whilst the core is undoubtedly 90's pagan black metal, they cram an incredible amount of influences into a fifty minute album. From the Schenker-esque guitar solo and organ of the opening track to the ritualistic electronics of the closer, this is an album of ideas that could rival the heyday visions of bands like Genesis and Van Der Graaf Generator in scope! Sure, it certainly IS black metal, but with a progressive approach that, admittedly, doesn't always work, but which is laudably ambitious.

I was fiercely critical of previous album, Estuary, feeling it was disjointed, however the band are now beginning to pull that surfeit of ideas together and have produced a far more coherent album this time around. There is still work to do in pulling all these ideas together into an album that flows flawlessly, but they are definitely heading in the right direction and when they finally tighten things up and do manage to pull it all together, then I think they have the potential to serve up an album of truly impressive progressive black metal.

Melbourne four-piece Mindsnare have played an enormous role in the creation of a thriving metalcore scene in Australia over the years & I feel somewhat privileged to have encountered them at a very early stage of their career when I discovered that they were practicing at the same rehearsal studio as my death metal band Neuropath during one of their early trips up to Sydney. I'd subsequently pay their rehearsal room a visit & would sit on the side with beer in hand as they'd smash out a succession of super-tight & highly energetic New York hardcore-inspired numbers that left me thoroughly impressed with both their undeniable professionalism & their overall heaviness. I've maintained a strong level of respect for Mindsnare as artists over the several decades since that experience but have always wondered if their studio recordings could possibly match the electricity of a live Mindsnare performance. The band's 1995 debut proper release "Under Fire" would seem like as good a place to start as any as it would have been roughly around that time that I had the pleasure of bumping into them so I guess I'm about to find out the answer to that long-standing question.

The version of "Under Fire" that I've explored this week includes the eight tracks that were intended for that release as well as Mindsnare's four-song demo tape from the previous year. The production job on the E.P. tracks is nice & clear with good separation between the instruments which does tend to highlight the simplicity of the song-writing with the arrangements & riff structures being kept fairly uncluttered & open. The band members seem to be very much in tune with each other with the performances being extremely tight so it's no wonder that Mindsnare were able to conjure up such a targeted & controlled live assault based on just how finely honed their attack was at the time. Vocalist Matt isn't the most amazing vocal talent you'll find but he does fairly well with what he's got & is backed up by the regular use of gang vocals in support. The New York hardcore influence is really clear throughout but the demo songs included on the CD are definitely a bit rawer. I tend to prefer their thrashier & more violent feel over the cleaner & more controlled E.P. direction to be honest.

I do have to admit that the E.P. material is a little hit & miss for me with a few flatter numbers seeing my attention wavering at various stages of this short 26-minute release. "New Horizon", "About Time" & "Conveyer Belt" all fall into that category & unfortunately Mindsnare haven't managed to produce any genuine highlight tracks that leave me exhilarated enough to overlook those flaws with all of the better material still failing to see me fully convinced. It's not until the demo songs that I find my blood really pumping with hardcore punk belter "False Front" & the crossover-infused closer "Look Past Me" being the clear high points of the release in my opinion. I particularly enjoy the more savage guitar tone on the demo material as it simply feels more dangerous to me which is important with a metalcore release.

It probably should be noted that metalcore isn't one of my preferred genres so it's rare for me to venture out into my higher scores when presented with The Revolution releases. Therefore, a 3.5-star rating isn't a bad result for a relatively unknown Aussie release that competes pretty well with the overseas competition. I just think that "Under Fire" is a little bit too basic for me to get all hot & bothered about. I definitely enjoy its thrashier moments the most which isn't really any surprise but I do get the feeling that Mindsnare's best material was likely ahead of them when listening to this debut release which isn't terribly ambitious. In saying that, I'm not too sure I can see myself putting the time into any of Mindsnare's later works so this might end up being my long-term position on them as a recording artist. Don't let that stop you if you're a big metalcore fan though as you can do a lot worse than this early Australian release.

For fans of Earth Crisis, Merauder & All Out War.

I have a bit of an up and down relationship with the Yorkshire gothic doom crew which I have touched on many times previously. They are a band within whose albums I usually find plenty to enjoy, but they are prone to annoying me with an overly pretentious theatricality that, I personally think, demeans them and diminishes their work. To put it more succinctly MDB are a band I often like, but hardly ever love. Well, maybe that is about to change, because it appears that with A Line of Deathless Kings they finally shed the aspects of their persona that grate on me and accentuated the aspects that appeal. They had done the same to a lesser degree on 2001's The Dreadful Hours which, up until now, had been my favourite MDB album, but here they strip back the overtly gothic schtick even further and rely on their doom metal credentials instead to generate the mournful and melancholy atmosphere, being much the better for it, in my opinion. This approach also allows for some seriously heavy moments to thrust their monumental heads above the tragic atmospherics, the killer riffs of "Love's Intolerable Pain" and "One of Beauty's Daughters" (even with the synths) being such examples that reveal a Line of Deathless Kings to be a high tide mark of heaviness for the band.

The stripping away of the keys (for the most part), strings and Aaron Stainthorpe's ham-fisted, vampiric overacting seems to have given the band a fresh sense of direction and focus and produced an album that I find it much easier to identify with. They still manage to generate a mournful sense of longing, but it feels somehow more honest because it comes directly from the songwriting and not from the addition of layers of atmospherics, making the emotional heft feel more visceral and vital. Along with the atmospherics, the Yorkshiremen have also shed any remaining death metal influence on their sound resulting in their most pure doom metal album to date. The production, of course, is terrific with a clear, yet weighty feel that serves all of the members very well indeed, allowing all their contributions to be appreciated in full.

By the time of this ninth full-length it seems My Dying Bride had gained enough confidence in their own abilities to stop hiding behind the atmospherics and production and lay it all out in the open. I, for one, am absolutely ecstatic because A Line of Deathless Kings shows MDB to genuinely be the band I had always hoped they were capable of being. Sometimes a bit less is a lot more.

Mechina is one of the more unique metal bands out there. But I would've loved them more if I discovered them 10 years ago when bombastic symphonic epicness was still my thing. Now it's quite tiring when the Nightwish-esque aspects of symphonics and female singing overpower the guitars. This is actually the first time female vocals are used here, though I'm not sure if those are real or programmed. Still, Empyrean is a well-structured potential soundtrack for Star Wars or any other epic sci-fi film franchise...

The quality would've been higher if there was more variety. That's the main issue when the album is following a conceptual saga with tracks seguing into one another to make a huge-a** suite. If they had more ideas to add to their creativity, some tracks would be better appreciated.

The Compendium edition actually has a few bonus tracks, and the first one right at the start is "Andromeda", a 9-minute epic released shortly after Conqueror. It's not all about headbanging and soloing, but rather a truly epic space journey. You can find a lot more in just 3 minutes instead of just DragonForce guitar soloing (which I still like). Although I love this epic, I think this would fit better in the Conqueror album as its near-end epic. Symphonics float through the drum/guitar attack as David Holch looks up to the cosmos and tears it apart with his brutal growls. All done practically better than in Conqueror! Those heavy climatic moments mixed with pleasant bliss would certainly give the Star Wars soundtrack more impact. And there's also the energy of Fear Factory, a band whom Mechina would cover one of their songs as another bonus track...

But for now, we're at the main part of the Empyrean album, starting with the build-up intro "Aporia". It leads to "Asterion" with some of the best riffing you can find here. Keep that in mind before the atmosphere takes the focus elsewhere. Things continue to sound steady in "Interregnum" as it begins. However, that's where the attempt to stitch tracks together becomes more obvious. "Imperialus" kicks off after building up from the previous track, and you can never hear it as a singular song. Once you're finished with "Anathema", you would think, "Wait, that long song was 3 tracks?!" Luckily, that track has amazing keyboard atmosphere to go with the heavy wrath.

"Catechism" is just a flat sh*tter, basically this album's "Internecion". It leads to this album's skippable midway interlude, "[Cryostasis_simulation__2632_01]", which just has some female dialogue over soft orchestra. But then we have "Eleptheria", which is perhaps the most well-executed highlight here, never as poorly aging as the other tracks. It segues to the title track, keeping up the momentum with incredible keyboards and vocals. Sometimes, simplicity can add to memorability.

"Infineon" is another memorable track that you can listen to at home or anywhere. "Terminus" drives through as a 10-minute epic, but it's too lengthy and complex for its own good. I still enjoy long progressive epics, just to make myself clear. It's just that, well, "Andromeda" had it all better.

Heading back into the Compendium bonus tracks, there are two covers, starting with the one for "Zero Signal" by Fear Factory. While the original song is still amazing, Mechina gave it an epic enhancement, filled with futuristic atmosphere before ending peacefully with a piano outro. But just like the original, it's doesn't quite reach highlight status. The mind-blowing "Ordinary World" is basically that Duran Duran ballad gone epic cyber metal. Of those two covers, I love this one more.

As cinematic and Fear Factory-infused as this album is, it seems the writing is a bit messy in Empyrean. But at least some tracks like most of the second half and the bonus tracks show a promised path towards the better Xenon (review for that later). Empyrean is best experienced in the V.2. remastering or the deluxe Compendium edition....

Favorites: "Andromeda", "Asterion", "Anathema", "Eleptheria", "Empyrean", "Infineon", "Ordinary World" (Duran Duran cover)

Melbourne's Christbait would be a band that I'd become aware of shortly after I'd made my first tentative steps into the wonderful world of Australian extreme metal back in the early 1990's. They were quite well known in the local scene at the time, having played a number of high-quality support gigs with international bands throughout the first part of that decade. My first time hearing their music though would be on a late-night metal radio program that I regularly recorded for my own listening throughout the subsequent week. It would be the opening track "Loose" from their first proper release "Yeast", the subject of this review. I was already well across English industrial metallers Godflesh at the time & was not at all surprised to hear the song paying clear homage to Justin Broadrick & co. given that Christbait had so clearly borrowed their name from the classic Godflesh anthem "Christbait Rising". This was a seriously good track in its own right though & one that I would go on to give a good ol' flogging in my Walkman over the subsequent months. It wouldn't, however, see me seeking out the "Yeast" E.P. or any other Christbait releases for that matter & it's only now, more than thirty years later, that I've found myself committing to my first active listen to a Christbait record for one reason or another.

Christbait initially began life as a death metal/grindcore act back in 1989 but "Yeast" sees them having taken a very different route for the majority of its 28-minute run time. There are a couple of short grindcore blastathons included (see "Nailgun" & "Tug"), both of which sound a little out of place & are easily the least significant tracks of the seven of offer, but the majority of the E.P. sits largely in sludge metal territory. If you were to take the industrial component out of Godflesh's sound to leave just the sludgy riffs & placed them over a more organic rhythm section then you'd go pretty close to describing the sound you can expect to hear on "Yeast". English sludge metallers Fudge Tunnel also spring to mind quite readily & so does Nirvana's "Bleach" album although the shouted vocals of front man Jason Vasallo sit much more firmly within the hardcore punk spectrum than Kurt Cobain would ever venture. It's all done exceptionally well though with the production job of well-known Aussie metal producer Scott Harper (who also produced popular underground releases from bands like Blood Duster, Damaged & Mindsnare to name just a few) being surprisingly heavy for an underground release of the time. There are periods where the Christbait head into slightly psychedelic territory (particularly on psychedelic rock closer "Loose (Edit)") but I think the links to stoner metal are overstated for this release to be honest as the grooves never have me feeling like dancing a jig if you know what I mean. They're colder & more serious than that.

The tracklisting is exceptionally consistent, particularly for a first-up release from a little-known Aussie band. There are no weak songsincluded but I'd suggest that only opener "Loose" feels like a minor classic. The rest of the material is generally very solid with simply-titled pieces like "Swing", "Spagnum" & "Yeast" all offering me plenty of appeal & replay value. It's honestly hard to see how Christbait didn't make more of a dent in the international scene on the strength of this record though because it competes really well with the bands I referenced earlier in the review. I guess this is simply another reminder of just how far away we are from the rest of the world, a distance that was perhaps a little more insurmountable back in the early 1990's. If my description of Christbait's sound tickles your fancy though then I'd strongly encourage you to venture over to YouTube to give the E.P. a crack for yourself as I have no doubt that you'll be pleasantly surprised by a record that has built up a decent level of notoriety in Australian metal folklore.

For fans of Godflesh, Fudge Tunnel & "Bleach"-period Nirvana.

Rotten Christ

While the last few notes of the closing track are ringing, I grace the recycled album cover with a tired stare. — Oh, how I wish I had fired up “Incorrigible Bigotry” instead! I figure at this point I should make peace with the fact that the Greek titans have indeed earned their right to rest & make some quick buck now and then — their works of old have brought me so much joy after all! As I contemplate the retirement conditions of musicians once great, it occurs to me that it'd be prudent to stop making a fool of myself and cease throwing more effort into this review — for on the record I struggle to find any.

It seems like the longer VOLA sticks around in the progressive metal sphere, the further away from their identity they get. Now this comes with its own sets of residual effects, but for progressive metal, it can sometimes turn into a net positive. But VOLA were never one of these bands that threw away the concept of melody, harmony and motivic development in their music for the sake of elongated song structures, with face melting guitar solos. 

And, wouldn't you know it, the newest VOLA album, Friend of a Phantom, will likely not have the same gradual effect as the band may have intended. If anything, there are more similarities between this and Soen's 2023 record Memorial, as the truly progressive aspects of the songwriting are gone. Now, VOLA sits as a singles band with the occasional djent breakdown to quell the crowd. And that might surprise you, since the first track, "Cannibal" is one of the heaviest that VOLA have ever made. Thanks in large part to the harsh vocals of In Flames' Anders Friden, you would be forgiven thinking that "Cannibal" was going to be an accurate representation of Friend of a Phantom, but that could not be further from the case.

The grimier sound quality continues into "Break My Lying Tongue", but it kneecapped by a distracting synth lead that is persistent throughout the songs choruses. But following that, this album goes into the status quo of VOLA alternative metal. And the hooks are not even as good as an album such as Witness to back it up. It has good moments sure (i.e. "We Will Not Disband" and "Hollow Kid") but they seem more spaced out than ever before.

At least the production is solid. This record has a great sound to it; all of the records most important parts are given center stage during their respective tracks. Whether that be the dogshit synth on "Break My Lying Tongue," or the vocoder harmonies of "Glass Mannequin." Even the albums djent-ier breakdowns are presented with polish and precision and also contain a semblance of motivic growth through them. The structure of the album however is not a strong suit. The album starts heavy, but becomes progressively slower and mellow as it persists and leaves me feeling like it runs too long for its own sake.

I will admit, Friend of a Phantom left me feeling underwhelmed. I'm not quite sure what I expected from VOLA with this album given their track record, but this felt lazy and uninspired. It almost feels like they want out of the progressive metal sphere and would rather take a place in the spotlight as an above average alternative metalcore band. The result however is losing a piece of what made VOLA so popular in progressive forums in the first place. The individual songs might be decent, but it's hard to separate them from the full artwork.

Best Songs: We Will Not Disband, Bleed Out, Hollow Kid

One of the best of the new Sabbath worshipping bands that are around right now. Shocked this has a 1.8 on here. Are y'all deaf?

I originally came across this band after hearing and falling in love with the song 'Transmigration of Souls', and upon finding out that their singer was none other than Enchant's Ted Leonard, I just knew I had to have this album.

One word: Wow.

After a two minute instrumental opening track, the song 'Sacred Treasure' completely blew me away, with its intro full of random guitar/keyboard/bass licks and solos, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So many instruments playing so many different things at once. Interestingly layered melodies and harmonies make this an instant classic in my eyes.

The typical prog metal cliche is that this is very 'Dream Theater inspired', and whilst I'm not denying that, Thought Chamber have a very cool exotic style and mixture of elements which make this a truly unique group. The amazing playing and songwriting style could easily stand toe-to-toe against the genre's pioneers, and songs like 'Sacred Treasure', 'Balance of One', 'God of Oblique' or any of the instrumentals justify this.

At times Leonard's vocals seem a little thin for this style of music, but hey, I'm not complaining, it still sounds awesome. In fact, there is nothing to complain about, this is one hell of a debut, and deserves a place in every Prog fans collection.

My earliest exposure to Danish death metallers Illdisposed came back in my mid-1990's tape trading days when I picked up the band's first three albums from an overseas associate of mine. I enjoyed all three to varying degrees but don't recall any of them really leaving me convinced that Illdisposed were the real deal in regard to the death metal movement that was already peaking when the Danes appeared on the scene. Our paths would not cross again for many years as I'd miss Illdisposed's first couple of early 2000's albums while I was on hiatus from the metal scene during my decade of electronic music experimentation. Our next encounter wouldn't come until Ben would introduce me to their 2004 sixth album "1-800 Vindication" upon my return to metal in around 2009 & I found it to showcase a different sounding Illdisposed to the one I'd encountered previously. This was a cleaner & more accessible version of the band that saw them adding a fair dose of melody to their approach & I initially found it very appealing, particularly given that I'm not generally one to gravitate towards the more melodic end of death metal. I'd return to "1-800 Vindication" a couple of times over the years & my affection for that record would see me exploring Illdisposed's next five full-lengths with varying results. None of them would hit the spot like "1-800 Vindication" did & a few of them were completely disposable so I've tended to use "1-800 Vindication" as my go-to Illdisposed release for a long time now. Interestingly though, I've never given it the dedicated attention required for a full Metal Academy review until now so I've gone into this exercise with an element of excitement.

One of the major differences with "1-800 Vindication" was that Illdisposed had finally been picked up by a reputable record label in Roadrunner Records which afforded them the financial backing to ensure a quality production job. The album sounds crisp & powerful with the riffs being given the clarity to highlight their precise execution. The record arrived a full three years after 2001's "Kokaiinum" which allowed front man Bo Sommer the time to fully recover from alcohol addiction & it features a brand-new rhythm section in bassist Jonas Kloge & drummer Thomas Jensen, both who do a very good job in accentuating Illdisposed's heavy-hitting brand of groovy death metal. Summer's deep death growls & higher-pitched screams sound as fresh as they ever have & represent the clear focal point of the record although the most noteworthy attribute is the incorporation of a new melodic death metal sound that borrows heavily from the greats of the subgenre with Carcass' "Heartwork" & At The Gates' "Slaughter of the Soul" being clear sources of inspiration. The use of synthesizers to add further melodic interest is also worth mentioning although I would suggest that its success is a little debatable. Illdisposed haven't completely abandoned their roots here though as there's still a conventional death metal component on show here too although I'd suggest that the melodic material has taken the ascendency overall. The riff structures have a tendency to veer away from the classic death metal tremolo-picked style towards a simpler but no less crushing groove metal one quite regularly which gives Illdisposed a further point of differentiation too.

Over the years I've found myself tending to gravitate towards certain key songs on the album & I can now see why as the tracklisting tends to be a little hit & miss for me these days. I've found myself feeling very positive about muscular efforts like opener "I Believe in Me" (my personal favourite), "When You Scream", "Still Sane" & "You Against the World" but these peaks are offset by some weaker numbers like "Dark", "In Search of Souls" & particularly the lacklustre "Now We're History" which do very little for me. Those less impressive moments do tend to match up with the more melodically & commercially inclined inclusions though so it's arguably just a matter of taste. The clean vocals of producer Niels Peter "Ziggy" Siegfredsen can be a little hit & miss at times in my opinion as they have a tendency to take some of the steam out of a perfectly good death metal tune but thankfully the wins outweigh the losses reasonably comfortably to make for an entertaining (if still largely inessential) Danish death metal experience. It's hard to say whether I still regard "1-800 Vindication" as Illdisposed's finest work or not but I have a feeling that I probably do. I also think it'll offer a little more appeal to melodeath fans than it does to me as there's definitely enough chunky & well-composed song-writing on offer if you can look past the album's failings.

For fans of Kataklysm, Autumn Leaves & Arch Enemy.

Contrary to appearances, I don't think I am especially dogmatic when it comes to metal appreciation and one illustration of this is the softening of my stance regarding gothic metal over the last couple of years. At one time I wouldn't have given an album such as Wolfheart the time of day, but exposure to top gothic metal perpetrators such as Paradise Lost and Draconian has definitely shifted my view on the genre and what it is capable of. I recently listened to Moonspell's 2008 album, Night Eternal and I enjoyed it quite a bit, awarding it a princely four stars, so I went into the band's debut, 1995's Moonspell, with high hopes.

Was this optimism justified then? Well, yes... and no. Musically there was plenty here that took my fancy, the guitar work especially standing out. The tone of the six-strings is great and the bass supplies a nice deep bottom end. The riffs are dolorous, heavy and quite memorable but the solos are the best thing about the album, in fact it's a pity the leads aren't given a bit more of a free rein as I would have liked to hear more from Tanngrisnir and Mantus in the vein of the soloing in the latter part of the opener.

Unfortunately Wolfheart suffers from the same bugbear that I have always had with a lot of gothic metal, that of excessive cheesiness. This takes the form of a heavy-handed application of synths, smothering a number of the tracks with a suffocating layer of 1980's-like keyboards that just doesn't sit well with me at all. The synths aren't the only issue though because the vocals annoyed me almost as much. The gruff, deathly male vocals are fine, but the forced, deep, clean male vocals that seem intended to mimic Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula still sound as ludicrous as I have always found that style of singing to be. There is, of course, several tracks with supposedly ethereal female vocals but, and I have no wish to be unkind, the effect is ruined because, to be frank, Birgit Zacher is here sounding like she is fighting to stay in tune, with "Love Crimes" especially sounding like she is struggling. Then, as if that wasn't enough there is also the track Trebaruna which is a full-on folk metal cheesefest and does absolutely nothing positive for me whatsoever.

Overall, then, I would have to say that although Wolfheart has some aspects I really enjoyed, especially when it is at it's heaviest or when the leads are firing off solos, the album's inherent theatricality is just too jarring for me to excuse completely, no matter how much I may enjoy it's positives and so ultimately it's score has to be accordingly middle-of-the-road.

Progressing through the clan challenge for Groove Metal sees me arrive at one of the more inconsistent bands I have experienced over my time listening to metal. After their debut album, Poland’s Decapitated dropped right off my radar with Nihility and The Negation doing nothing to further the promise offered on Winds of Creation. Over a career that saw the band suffer immeasurable tragedy and move from their more traditional technical death metal sound to a more groove orientated direction in later years, Decapitated have gained very little of my attention since the early noughties.

Anticult landed on my radar before the clan challenge brought me here though, with Kill the Cult appearing on a workout playlist earlier this year and finding itself becoming a mainstay track for most of my kettlebell sessions. The rabid yet rhythmic style of that track was a good indicator of what to expect from the album overall. Although I would argue that there is nothing remarkable about Anticult in terms of being a classic by any means, it does offer a consistency that avoids pedestrianism largely due to the vicious and seemingly tireless energy levels that are deployed in abundance.

The old Decapitated sound is still here (Anger Line) amidst the more groove orientated sections. Closing track, Amen sounds like a Nile track – albeit never lives up to their sense of the epic by any means it must be noted. Part of Anticults success is that it does not allow the groove elements to be at the expense of the death metal strains of the record. Death metal is the core structure still with groove metal applying the fixtures and fittings if you like.

Anticult misses out on higher score because as solid as it maybe it never gets exciting. I have no desire to revisit it immediately after most plays, even with raging moments like One Eyed Nation still present in my brain. Whilst Kill the Cult continues to help me push various weights around, the album overall leaves me satiated yet still looking for a bit more somehow.

The full-length album, The Search, was the only official release from the first iteration of Santiago's Necrosis before they split in 1990 and is the earliest chilean thrash album I could find. It was released in July of 1988 on vinyl and limited to 3500 copies with four of it's eight tracks having debuted on the 1987 Kingdom of Hate demo, the lineup here being identical to the one that was responsible for the demo.

As I said during my review of Kingdom of Hate, Necrosis' sound is very much rooted in the Bay Area thrash scene, particular touchpoints being Exodus and Testment and The Search is more of the same, with mid- to fast-paced chugging riffs, tight, aggressive guitar solos and an energetic rhythm section. Songwriting-wise, Necrosis go for a fairly orthodox approach, but they do like to incorporate several tempo changes during most of the tracks, so they seldom turn in tracks that are just generic chugathons and they even have a couple of quite progressive numbers. I have only managed to listen to Necrosis' back catalogue on YouTube, so I'm not sure if this was the case with the original recordings, but even though the full-length has a deeper, bassier sound, the demo actually has more clarity with the later recording sounding a bit dampened and less crisp than the former.

So, any production issues aside, is it any good? Well yeah, it's not bad actually and whilst I wouldn't place it quite as high as either Bonded By Blood or The Legacy, in my opinion it certainly holds it's own against the follow-ups to both of those albums. Kicking off with the title track it immediately dives headfirst into the moshpit with a killer riff straight from San Fran Bay, never really letting up for the whole forty-odd minutes runtime. Second track "Fall in the Last Summer" was for sure influenced by Anthrax's New York sound and Among the Living in particular, originally appearing on the demo, which was released not too long after the Anthrax album and is a decent take on Scott Ian and co's more jagged style of thrashing. The nine-minute "Prayer" goes even further taking a few twists and turns by combining both New York and Bay Area styles into one thrashtastic epic which makes the album worth hearing on it's own. Ultimately, I guess accusations of The Search being derivative hold some weight, to a degree, but with a track like "Prayer" the band seem to have been genuinely trying to stamp their own personality onto the burgeoning South American thrash scene.

As for the new tracks, I have already covered the title track (which is the pick of the four), "From the Sea" is a less than one minute bass guitar instrumental a bit like the latter part of "Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)", "Liar" has a nice chuggy riff and is very solid and the last of the new tracks, "Golden Valley", is a decent enough instrumental with some nice soloing. Track-for-track I would have to say that the material from the demo is the stronger.

As much as I would love a copy of The Search, it is currently shifting for £80-£200 on Discogs!! I enjoyed it a lot, but not quite that much. Still, it is a little bit of thrash metal history, especially for anyone interested in the early South American scene, so the touts will price it accordingly. Incidentally, The Search was re-recorded in 2009 by Kingdom of Hate, who are comprised of original members of Necrosis. Although the production is much, much better, I think a significant portion of the vitality and youthful vigour of the original is lost in the process, making it a diminished release as a result.

It takes Better Lovers just fifteen minutes to bring the rush of memories back to Every Time I Die's popular brand of southern metalcore. And the result is something that sounds really cool, but I feel like it could have done a little bit more.

Part of this is how similar this EP sounds to the aforementioned band and the inclusion of Greg Puciato on vocals does not change much. Perhaps I was kind of expecting a little bit of a pivot that would differentiate Better Lovers from Every Time I Die, but perhaps it was also a compositional decision in order to quickly bring in old fans who could easily pick out that sound and style.

As for the compositions themselves, they aren't too bad. "Become So Small" and "30 Under 13" certainly have some wallop to them, while the cleaner "Sacrificial Participant" and title track have a nice alternative feel and show off the bands melodic side. The instrumentals are punchy and gritty, while Greg's vocals are decent as well, but likely at their worst on the opener "Sacrificial Participant", if only for their lack of dynamic growth.

Overall this is a decent debut EP for Better Lovers that, once again, will fill in the missing hole in your heart left by Dillinger Escape Plan and Every Time I Die. However if this band wants to be more than a simple nostalgia act, they need to modernize and improve the formula in some way or another, otherwise this animal will go extinct before its had a chance to reproduce.

Best Songs: 30 Under 13, Become So Small, God Made Me an Animal

I can say with utmost certainty that Every Time I Die was not apart of my go-to metalcore bands during the 2000s. I never disliked them, but in comparison to the festival metalcore that was popular late in the decade and even into the 2010s, they never crossed my mind. That said, I was surprised by the “mainstream” pivot with records such as Ex Lives and Low Teens late into their career, with some of Low Teens still serving as regular playlist fodder for me.

When ETID (Every Time I Die) broke up, it left a noticeable hole in the metalcore scene, since their brand of southern metal was one-of-a-kind. And it became a huge deal when three of ETID’s members were heard in studio with ex Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist, Gerg Puciato. And thus, Better Lovers came to be. The bands debut EP (God Made Me an Animal) was a wallop of southern metalcore that was certainly fun, but also felt too like the other band.

Highly Irresponsible by contrast is a record that has the distinct sound of ETID, but with a little extra flavour. The album is grimy and lacks polish, but the instrumentals have a bit more flare than one might expect from a classic ETID album. It should be all the makings of a disaster record, yet somehow the southern rock influence remains constant throughout. Highly Irresponsible sounds ferocious.

Greg Puciato might have something to do with that. The vocal delivery of Puciato is very different from Keith Buckley. And if I’m being completely honest, Puciato’s vocals fit the intensity and style better than Buckley. These vocals are distinct and lack the clean polish that were present on previous Dillinger records. But the vocals are not perfect; I do not remember Puciato’s clean singing being this hit-or-miss, however some of the cleaner songs like “A White Horse Covered in Blood” have this eerily out-of-tune vocal presentation that does not sit well with me.

The compositions are varied, which is nice, but lack consistency. You can hear sporadic mathcore influence from Dillinger Escape Plan, some straightforward bangers from classic ETID, as well as the more melodic side of that band that was present on Low Teens. Some songs are catchy, like “Future Myopia”, but other like “Superman Died Paralyzed” just scream album filler. Meanwhile, the ending is odd. “At All Times” has the classic sound of resolution on a metalcore album, only for “Love as an Act of Rebellion” to show up and rip the band-aid off for one more assault; it felt like a classic bonus track on a physical album, but without the secret.

This record might turn out to be a grower for me. While I do like Better Lovers for their blending of styles from their previous endeavours, it almost feels like too much of a good thing. Highly Irresponsible shows the love for Every Time I Die and that these mates still have plenty left in the tank to offer us. However, in doing so, Better Lovers created an album that is missing polish. I am willing to let it slide for now, but it would be irresponsible of me to give them the benefit of the doubt in the future.

Best Songs: Your Misplaced Self, Future Myopia, Deliver Us From Life, Love as an Act of Rebellion

It was a pleasant surprise to see Xephyr nominating the brand-new sophomore record from this Ukrainian duo for inclusion as this month's The North feature release given that I gave their debut album "Tales of the Void" a couple of casual listens last year & thought it showed some promise. Despite the fact that I haven't felt like returning to it since, "Tales of the Void" did leave me wondering what Labyrinthus Stellarum might be capable of in the future & here we get the perfect opportunity to see what that might amount to with "Vortex of the Worlds" being huge wall of bright, vibrant extreme metal with a unique flair for melody.

It really shouldn't be much of a surprise to see Xephyr nominating a release like this one as it falls right inside of his wheelhouse which is admittedly a fair way outside of my own but that's not to say that this isn't a more than decent black metal release. It is, however, one that blurs the boundaries of the black metal genre & it's up to the listener to decide as to whether that's something they're comfortable with or not. The idea of a black metal band incorporating the influence of trance music (& I do mean the uplifting & overly melodic form of EDM in all its glory here) as a primary component of their sound is not unheard of as we've seen artists like Australia's Mesarthim pulling it off successfully in the past but it will still come as a bit of a shock to the system of the more blasphemy-fueled & lo-fi-insistent black metal fans out there. You see, Labyrinthus Stellarum's sound is intentionally kept very clean & I'd even suggest that it glistens in the sunlight rather than being resigned to a life of sorrow in an icy Norwegian winter. And "Vortex of the Worlds" does come a fair bit closer to the sun than most black metal releases too because its themes are generally centered around space & the cosmos, again not something that's unheard of in the modern black metal scene but certainly something that goes against the traditional norm.

It won't take you long to realise that Labyrinthus Stellarum don't have a human drummer because the kick drum comes across as a machine gun of identical & precisely separated battering rams & took me a bit of time to get used to, particularly given my strong affiliations with extreme metal drumming. After a couple of listens I found myself able to accept this element of the record though, perhaps more because of the links to electronic music which is inherently artificial. The other obvious characteristic that becomes immediately apparent is the strong use of synthesizers as a focal point of the music, so much so that the guitars are forced into a purely supporting role which perhaps justifies the dropping of second guitarist Alexander Kostetskyi following the debut album. These synths take a couple of different directions; one that emulates traditional folk instruments & another that eschews the ancient world for a no-holds-barred trance-fest that would likely see the feelings of euphoria rising in those who are not opposed to a necking a couple of pingers & dancing their arses off at the latest Gatecrasher event. Despite my strong affiliations with dance music after my decade-long journey as a techno DJ in the 2000's, I've never enjoyed trance but I can dig this stuff because it never quite leaps over the cheese line, instead tending to tip-toe along the edge without ever fully committing. The vocals of Alexander Andronati certainly help to keep things centered as they're a fine example of the black metal shriek if I've ever heard one.

There aren't too many obvious weaknesses to be found on "Vortex of the Worlds" but it did take me a bit of time to get into, mainly because the highlights don't arrive until the back end of the tracklisting with the first few songs being merely acceptable. The epic title track that closes out the album is the obvious highlight for mine with the very solid "From the Nothingness" also standing out from the pack. The other four tracks are all pretty enjoyable but I wouldn't say that any of them quite manage to overcome my biases towards a more grim & frost-bitten black metal sound. I do think that "Vortex of the Worlds" is an improvement on "Tales of the Void" but perhaps not by as great a margin as I might have liked. There's no doubt that it represents a great opportunity for crossover appeal given its more accessible approach to the genre & I can only praise Labyrinthus Stellarum for their execution from such a young age given that guitarist Misha Andronati isn't even eighteen yet.

For fans of Mesarthim, Crow Black Sky & Lustre.

During my recent investigation into the earliest roots of the Australian extreme metal scene, I discovered that Melbourne hardcore punk outfit Vicious Circle are often referred to as a crossover thrash act which is interesting because I picked up some of their albums (including this one) through the older skater kids at my high school when I was a youngster but don't recall thinking that their earlier works were particularly thrashy. Over the past week I've digested Vicious Circle's two 1984 demo tapes "Circle of the Doomed" & "Foolish Ideas", their 1985 live cassette "Live at the Prince of Wales", their 1985 "Search for the Solution!!" single as well as their two split releases with Perdition & Youth Brigade but I don't think I've encountered a genuine thrash tune as yet. That brings me to the band's 1985 debut full-length "The Price of Progress" which I received along with a whole bunch of hardcore-oriented material from bands like Massappeal, Condemned? & Depression back in the very early 1990's. This time though, I'll be listened with some more educated ears & will be paying specific attention to the inclusion of metal components in Vicious Circle's sound to see if these Victorians have any right to be included in the early Aussie thrash discussion.

"The Price of Progress" takes the exact same musical approach as Vicious Circle's demo material to be honest & you won't find any metal on offer here. Instead, you can expect to receive a fairly stock-standard version of hardcore punk but one that's been very well written & executed. I've encountered almost all of the fifteen songs included on the other releases I mentioned above but this time they've been delivered with a greatly improved production job that better highlights Vicious Circle's natural energy. The tempos are generally kept high with the high-octane delivery making for a great record to thrash around your bedroom to. Vocalist Paul Lindsay does an excellent job at spitting out his socially & politically fueled lyrics & is the focal point of Vicious Circle's sound while the instrumentation does tend to be fairly formulaic in structure with a lot of fast down-picking & palm-muting going on in classic punk style.

Most of this material is very enjoyable, even though I wouldn't say that I'm a hardcore afficionado by any stretch of the imagination. I just know good song-writing when I hear it & there's plenty of that on offer here. There are a few flatter tunes amongst the fifteen on offer though with "Scream", "Distorted Truth" & particularly the noticeably weak "Sleep Talk" failing to connect with me. The more appealing songs tend to be the more hectic & violent ones in my opinion which is perhaps not all that surprising given my taste profile. The versions of "Public Minister" & Bloodrace" that are included are much better than the ones that first appeared on 1984's "Circle of the Doomed" demo & sit amongst of the highlights of the album along with the excellent "Factors". The rest of the material is all more than acceptable, even though I wouldn't suggest that much of it is particularly essential as it's simply replicating a tried & tested model of punk music.

If you're a big hardcore fan then you can do a lot worse than to explore "The Price of Progress" as it's a more than decent punk record that I'd take over many of the more recognised international hardcore records of the time (Black Flag's "My War", Suicidal Tendencies' "Join the Army", English Dogs' "Invasion of the Porky Men", DYS' self-titled album, Ugly Americans' "Who's Been Sleeping… In My Bed", etc). It's not, however, one that should be commanding a position on the Metal Academy database & it'll be interesting to see how Vicious Circle's sound develops over the next couple of releases because I can't see why the band have been linked to crossover thrash on the evidence of their debut album. Perhaps Depression were leading the way in the Aussie hardcore scene but Vicious Circle were certainly following closely behind & looking over their shoulder at bands like Condemned? & Gash.

For fans of Black Flag, Condemned? & early Depression.

Grand Magus are one of my favourite bands, a go-to act when I long for some epic norse heavy metal and a consistent provider of fist-pumping and horns-raising battle hymns. Sunraven is the trio's tenth album and comes a full five years after the very solid, if not exactly earth-shattering, Wolf God. Well, was it worth the wait? I would give an unequivocal "hell yeah!" To my ears this is the band's best since 2012's stellar The Hunt.

Metal has become a very diverse scene over the years. There are bands who push the envelope of what it is to be metal, there are bands that strive to be ever more extreme in brutality or heaviness, there are yet others who seek to elicit deep emotions and those who create gorgeous, sweeping and epic soundscapes. All those are great and deserve every respect, but one of the most maligned types of metal bands that exist today are those that know what their fanbase expect and enjoy and who deliver that in the form of expertly crafted "songs" that tap into the days when fans listened to metal for enjoyment and to pump their fists in the air whilst banging their heads out of sheer exuberance for the glorious sounds leaping at them from out of their speakers. Grand Magus are one such band and, in my opinion, one of the best. This is metal that is meant to be experienced and enjoyed, not dissected by chin-stroking pseudo-intellectuals who would shit themselves at the mere thought of diving into a moshpit.

Sunraven is a very tight album, it's nine tracks run for a total of only thirty-five minutes, so there is no self-indulgent wankery here, this is to-the-point and succinct metal that encapsulates the very essence of the genre. The production is great, with superb clarity and a nice depth to the sound, especially in it's vinyl format. Grand Magus have few contemporary rivals in heavy metal when it comes to writing sing-along choruses and memorable riffs that swirl around your head for days. I for one find it almost impossible to get through a GM album without bawling out at least one chorus, much to the consternation of all the other dog walkers in the woods that day, I dare say!

The rhythm section of bassist Fox and drummer Ludwig are terrific, the drums here sound excellent in fact, and the basslines are economical and powerful, the two operating as a tight and efficient unit, but, let's be honest, Grand Magus are defined by guitarist and vocalist, JB and he is on fine form throughout Sunraven's runtime. He has a strong and fairly powerful, yet unstrained voice with a clear delivery which enables the listener to discern all the lyrics easily. His guitar work is impressive, without being even remotely showy, with well-written, memorable riffs and some of his finest solos to date, sounding natural and efficient but also epic and vital at the same time, which is not always an easy feat to achieve.

There really isn't much more to say, Sunraven is unapologetically business as usual for Grand Magus, but when your business is just so fucking metal then who's going to complain. They take great delight in the tropes of heavy metal and celebrate their own scandinavian heritage and epic myths with pride and affection it seems. I, for one, am glad that a band like Grand Magus, who possess an instinctive feel for metal, still exist and have carved out a dedicated following of nuts who are still able to celebrate the genre for the escapist, life-affirming wonder that it is capable of being. If tracks like !Skyborne", "Wheel of Pain", "Hour of the Wolf" and the title track aren't capable of getting your head nodding and your fingers twitching of their own accord in an attempt to throw the horns, then you probably need to check your pulse... or at least your metal credibility!