UnhinderedbyTalent's Reviews

Sweden has this penchant for spitting out authentic and well-constructed heavy metal.  Looking at the likes of Screamer and Enforcer as well as the likes of Mystik, it is a country of many pairs of tight trousers and leather fingerless gloves it seems.  Despite having a dodgy band name, Ambush deliver an excellent bash down memory lane for anyone wanting to revisit the metal heyday of the eighties.  Big shiny band logo?  Check.  Galloping rhythms? Check.  Lot's of "horns up" band photos?  Check.  The list of reference points is virtually infinite.

Clearly raised on a healthy diet of Priest and Accept the band reinvent few wheels on their 2014 debut.  It never gets dull or repetitive though and there's more to this than just flogging a dead horse or paying tribute to days gone by.  They provide a high-energy and driven performance over nine tracks and structure an album full of anthemic and genuine heavy metal that sticks in the brain.

Opting for a consistently high-tempo to most tracks the album flows nicely and the lack of any ballads ensures the album never feels like it is straying into the hard rock territory I occasionally fear it is treading close to.  The lead work on the guitar feels measured and if honest I would like a bit more of it as although the power in the engine is the riffs there's a few licks missing for me to spice things up enough to make the album a truly standout release.  Overall though the instrumentation is solid and strong sounding giving a real sense of unison to the band's performance.

For a debut album it shows lots of promise and I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of their discography pans out as I explore it over the coming months.

Had I not stumbled across the artwork on this album via the Gallery on this site I would have missed out entirely on the existence of US speed/thrash/traditional heavy-metallers The Horde.  In what feels like a very short career the band only managed two releases, with From Empire to Ashes being classed as an EP (albeit more of a mini-album arguably).  Their equally well-adorned full-length release came three years after this with the four piece disbanding altogether in 2014.

I think it is fair to say that whilst not terrible, From Empire to Ashes does not live up to the promise of the artwork (check out Alan Lathwell’s work across various albums over the years btw).  Whilst it doesn’t reinvent any wheels, there’s enough nods to the likes of Cirith Ungol and The Lord Weird Slough Feg to keep that traditional heavy-metal feel alive through the more the thrashy/speed metal elements of the sound, with the band not afraid to slow the pace right down when required also.  It falls down really only on it being just a tad too chaotic at times, not helped by a less than perfect production job that although keeps some cult authenticity to proceedings does just sit on the wrong side of stifling.

The drums feel particularly disadvantaged in the mix, sat just that bit too far back with the vocals also seeming to be a bit muffled in there also.  There’s nothing wrong with the actual performance of either, the blackened sneers of Duncan are perfectly appropriate to the direction of the tracks if I am honest.  It is just a shame that all the component parts don’t get to shine in equal amounts really.  What the mix/production quality does do however is allow the guitars to really drive things forward.  They are competently played by both Derek and Tim with solid riffing and effective lead work both being utilised well when appropriate.

Whilst the EP/min-album won’t get masses of rotation here it will still retain a spot in the music library for the odd spin alongside the likes of Hobb’s Angel of Death, Midnight, Venom as well as the aforementioned Lord Weird Slough Feg also.  Neat find via Metal Academy number 77.

Was it just a version of Black Sabbath or an actual separate entity altogether?  Would it have survived had we still had Ronnie James Dio with us?  With the line up consisting of all four members of Sabbath’s Mob Rules album from 1981, it seems a hard sell to think of Heaven & Hell as being anything other than Black Sabbath.  Around for only four years in total the band managed only one full-length release under the name Heaven & Hell with the rest of the discography being two live records and various singles.

As you would expect from such an array of established and legendary artists the self-titled album is monstrous and accomplished in equal parts.  It is the perfect incarnation of Black Sabbath with a superb vocalist (other than Ozzy) that held mainstream appeal as well as enough familiar gloom to appease the ardent followers of - what was then - the past forty years of one of heavy metal’s most recognised brands.

There was a brooding rumble to Iommi’s riffs that accentuated the vocals of Ronnie perfectly, with Geezer and Vinnie doing their usual superb job of supporting the whole sound with that solid rhythm and percussion section that gave the tracks real depth and weight.  The foursome maintained a consistent and solid approach to the songwriting and as such all ten tracks stay in the memory but there are some huge tracks in here that clearly outshine the others.  Bible Black, Double The Pain and Follow The Tears all play effortlessly in the brain regardless of how long it has been since the record itself last got a spin.

There is an element of things sounding a tad too familiar at times over the course of the record which does limit the amount of plays it gets over the average year but still, even if considered as nothing more than a fitting tribute to one of Sabbath’s strongest line ups, Heaven & Hell is a fine heavy metal record, rooted in the fabric of the genre I have spent most of my life listening to and as such remains a standout release in the varied history of one the most iconic bands in music history.

My continued exploration of the symphonic/power metal genre gleans a mixture of both interesting and unfortunately repulsive albums as I traverse the waters.  Score to a New Beginning falls somewhere around the interesting mark initially and although it never dips away into the repulsive category highlighted above it doesn’t hold up well over the duration of the record.  Whilst there’s no doubt that the formula the band uses more than gets them to the finish line, it falls far short of warranting description of being a “winning” formula.

Despite a multitude of sounds and instrumentation being active on the record the mix for the large part is surprisingly good.  The keys and strings do feel like they are jostling for space at times but they don’t lose one another at the expense of building atmosphere and drama.  The same cannot be said unfortunately for the vocals which find themselves bobbing along in the tide and on more than one occasion ending up under the waves of clashing cymbals, stabs of keys and riffs from guitars.  They aren’t helped by the fact that although they often sound powerful enough they struggle to add an edge to things when needing to sound more aggressive and just generally more metal than rock.

The tracks themselves do suffer from a very formulaic structure of verse, chorus, keyboard solo, guitar solo and then rinse and repeat.  Not that you can fault the musicianship here, more the songwriting capabilities are questionable at best.  That having been said, there’s some genuine stick your chest out moments as you listen; where the epic structures come to life and you are cast into the theatre and drama of scenarios like the artwork.  The balance of the symphonia works well enough at times to give me hope for the record but overall the sense of being underwhelmed is difficult to fight off.

The melodic power metal of Stratovarius is not a style Macca exactly loves.  Now that is not to say that it is without merit or worthy of recognition, given nobody writes songs on the scale of Stratovarius overnight it would be a fool who simply dismissed them for being “too soft” or “one-dimensional”.  One of the main things in Nemesis favour is the consistent energy level present throughout the album.  This isn’t enough to encourage me to land it with a 4 or 5 star rating of course but it is golden thread that weaves through the album as a constant theme.  It feels like a teenage energy, like music created by pubescent youths, full of cheesy lyrics of hope and encouragement backed by widdly guitar solos and soaring keyboards.

This immaturity only carries the album so far though before the lyrics just become an annoyance and the song structures a little too predictable.  Whilst I acknowledge the effort put in to creating most of the album it lacks many memorable elements despite the amount of obvious hooks and chorus lines in there. I think this is due to there being little variety to the tracks; seemingly all following a very safe verse, chorus, repeat and then some keys or a solo (sometimes both) format, tracks soon get tiresome.  Again, it isn’t bad playing or songwriting it’s just very siloed and insular.

If I am honest, by about halfway in I am gone, the music is still playing but I am not tuned in any longer.  I still know what is coming next though such is the predictable nature of the songs and with only the album artwork to hold my attention anymore this over-accessibility to proceedings really starts to grate. 

The horn that announces the opening of this album promises a traditional viking affair full of folk elements and historic melodies and this is in the main what Falkenbach deliver on Ok nefna tysvar ty.  Retaining a good balance of riffs and more traditional sounding folk instrumentation, Vratyas Vakyas delivers his one-man band show again covering all instruments and vocals over the seven tracks.  Undoubtedly a talented chap he weaves a simple and almost catchy sound that fills the room nicely as you progress through the album.

The main problem for me is the vocal delivery.  It is very monotonous and lacks any variety whatsoever.  As a result tracks pretty soon start to sound the same and I find my myself losing interest in most of the verses, with only the instrumentation to pull me back in when it takes front seat.  Now, I am not expecting death growls or black metal vocals at any point and I do understand the vocal style more than fits the aesthetic but it does bore me at times.

The saving grace as I mention is the instrumentation.  Whilst I don't profess to know every instrument on here I do recognise that I am listening to a skilled musician who can write endearing and memorable songs, embellishing intros with occasional drama and atmospherics to build the sense of storytelling nicely and provide some variety at least.  The album artwork compliments the music in this regard; there is an etherealness to the sound here yet also a sense of the epic as the artwork suggests.

Whilst I may not entirely get on with the album, I cannot dismiss it as being poor in all honesty, I just wanted a little more variety to it.  Perhaps in my less restless moments my opinion of the record would be even more positive but as it stands it's a solid 3 from me.

Billed as Symphonic Metal, Graveshadow are more of a quandary than the simple tag applied to them may suggest.  Ambition’s Price is their second full-length and contains a mixture of traditional and power metal sounds with an (unnecessary) amount of melodic death metal applied also.  The symphonic element is by no means lost in all the variety on display but definitely feels like it is more subtly applied, and this is by no means a criticism.  The approach to the delivery and application of the symphonic elements allows the more powerful tools in use to shine and create some enjoyable moments.

The obvious star of the show here is Heather Michelle Smith’s vocal performance.  On the clean tracks and passages they are melodic and tuneful without relying on operatics to drive their power.  Whilst the lyrics do occasionally seem to be cumbersome for her to deliver she manages in the main to deliver an accomplished performance.  This is let down only by her forays into a more melodic death style growl and harsh vocal delivery that I feel showcases neither her talents as a vocalist nor the band’s style in general.  These harsher vocals don’t arrive at points in tracks that signal some change in direction of a song and as such just feel unnecessary without being forced, but if there’s nothing wrong with the clean vocals, why change them at any point?

Some of the better tracks like The Gate and Return to Me cope well enough with majority clean vocals and these tracks in particular feel like really cohesive songs written by a band all on the same page and heading in the same direction.  For the majority of the album though things feel confused and whilst this never strays to any sense of them being directionless it does impair my enjoyment of the album overall.  

As the album goes on it does feel like it gets better but the trio of tracks that I presume tells some tale towards the end of the album probably would have worked better as two tracks for me.  The other consistent element to the album is the guitar work of Aaron Robitsch.  Whilst he doesn’t go over the top with his leads I feel they are good enough to be given perhaps a little more space on some tracks to take some focus away from just the power of the vocals.  Supported by a solid rhythm section most tracks motor along well enough but they need a few more solos to get out of third or fourth gear sometimes.

In summary, although the content doesn’t live up to the promise of the artwork there’s still a lot of potential here for an artist still finding their feet.  I believe they no longer have Heather in the ranks so those may be challenging boots to fill but I will ensure I give an ear to their next release and see whether things feel more settled on the style and direction of the band.

Venom get way to little attention nowadays in my daily album listening.  As such I tend to forget how important they are in weaving the very fabric of extreme music that dominates my digital library as well as my physical copies that frequent the shelving in my lair.  By the time Venom released their debut we had already seen five Motörhead records, two Iron Maiden albums and nine Judas Priest records.  The numbers are important here, I don't just quote them for statistical purposes.  Of the seventeen albums cross the three bands mentioned, arguably Welcome to Hell was the most influential on the more extreme sub-genres of metal, taking the speed metal elements and sloppy songwriting and putting in the foundations for a whole new expansion of heavy metal in years to come.

Listen to this record and you can hear where Bathory got their vibe from; that murky sound, low production value, intense and adversarial attitude and a non-chalant, tongue-in -cheek undertone to it all.  Welcome to Hell is performed by three lads with no fucks to give, having a great laugh and perhaps unknowingly shaping the future of one of music's loudest and most obnoxious genres.  Going into this review I found a reissue with several demos, singles and outakes that takes the record to a twenty-two song Venomfest which I have gorged upon for the past two days.  Listening to some of the demo and outake tracks it is obvious that this was a band living their best life.  Writing deliberately provocative lyrics and noisy as fuck arrangements to maximise the shock factor.

And this is what needs to be taken way from the listening experience more than anything.  Forget for a minute how influential an album it is.  Put down the microscope and stop analysing what sub-genres and sub-cultures it created.  Instead appreciate it as a record full of unbridled and unrestrained aggressive metal passion, delivered by three young musicians with obvious but not excessive talent aimed at doing nothing more than enjoying a good time and not caring two shits who they pissed off in the process.

I am not a massive power metal fan, something I may have declared elsewhere in other reviews or forum threads on Metal Academy.  Beyond (some) Blind Guardian albums I struggle to find much in the way of entertainment from the genre.  A lot of this is down to a lack of any real aggression or actual power (pun intended) to most albums I listen to.  Sometimes there’s a depth and richness to the songwriting that makes up for it, like with Twilight Force’s Dawn of the Dragonstar for example.  In those instances the balance of cheesy synths and slightly more subdued riffage feels to be acceptable as long as they are held within the confines of epic song structures that deliver power to the tracks in a way other than rhythmic chugs and chops.

Persuader are perhaps one of the first bands I have heard that actually sound like how I always imagined power metal bands should sound.  On When Eden Burns the band delivers a strong and consistent performance, balancing solid songwriting with biting riffs and robust structures that combine elements of the epic power I mentioned above with the sheer power of the instruments in their hands (and the vocal chords in their throats).

I find the vocalist reminds me a lot of Blind Guardian (let’s not forget that band is probably my sole existing reference point for power metal at this stage) which is not a bad thing by any means as there’s enough differentiation on the rest of the sound to show a clear gap between these Swedes and the aforementioned German act.  The other similarity here is with the quality of the musicianship on show, which although doesn’t quite hit the dizzy heights of some of the better work from Blind Guardian, is still proof that when you get a bunch of talented musicians together then real magic can happen.

The album feels rewarding to listen to.  Like the promise of the content behind the artwork is delivered across the whole album and not just on a few standout tracks.  Although it shows variety in pace and tempo the experience is pleasantly intense feeling like you’re being given some power metal workout minus kettle bells and resistance bands.  Not being massively familiar with the band I don’t know how this album measures up to previous releases (or any that may have followed) but I am willing to bet that as I journey through the discography this will prove to be one of the stronger releases I find.

Thanatos landed on my radar earlier last year after I listened to their superb Emerging From the Netherworlds album. The Dutch deathsters managed to put together a decent run of albums over their first three releases and despite an eight year gap between their sophomore and their third release, Angelic Encounters was a fucking blast.  Sadly the band went a little off the boil for me with Undead. Unholy. Divine and this lull carried into 2009's Justified Genocide.

Although not terrible as such, album number five from the band is a tired sounding affair that regurgitates the same rhythms and riffs over and over leaving you feel trapped in a maze of torment that even Morbid Angel would want out of.  The combination of death metal and thrash metal somehow leaves for an exhausted sounding experience with the band seemingly unable to get themselves out of a rut of over-used ideas that no matter how hard you flog them just won't provide entertainment.

The result is an album that spasms with the occasional throes of life only to soon be overwhelmed by it's own repetition and lack of invention to then soon find itself in some humdrum existence that just lurches on and on.  Broken up only by a half-decent cover of Massacre's Dawn of Eternity the album otherwise just passes me by.  The album is raw and crunchy sounding but this doen't give it any cult sheen and it just sounds like a band trying to mask their innovation starved songs by hoping some good ol' fashioned brutal riffing will get them by.  It doesn't.

Album number twelve from arguably one of the most copied acts in death metal sounds like a band at a much younger and more energetic stage of their careers than the known history of the band would have you believe.  As John McEntee comes for his 51st year he continues stand astride the monstrous death metal machine that is Incantation, delivering another consistent if not predictable album that finds the band in their now very familiar territory yet somehow staying relevant still.

Coming into it, I had the expectation of how Sect of Vile Divinities sound and it absolutely lives up to those expectations in the main.  Things feel slightly more accessible on this outing though and the tracks seem more open and evenly paced.  I sense there is more groove to the riffs as well and a sense that a more structured approach has been taken with the songwriting.  It is by no means a reinvention of the Incantation sound but it is a more measured feeling album from my experience of the last couple of studio releases.  Some of this may be down to the lead work being handled this time by Sonny Lombardozzi (with Dismemberment's Luke Shively also being involved) but I think in the main the fact is that there can't be much more mileage left in the Incantation sound of a band that has churned out pretty much the same style for nearly thirty years.  Swanö's mix job is of the usual quality you would expect and you can hear all parts of the engine firing here but I think overall this is a much more considered album from the band.

Overall, songs are in the shorter format with no sign of the eleven and sixteen minute efforts that made elements of Vanquish in Vengeance and Dirges of Elysium so laborious to get through.  This album takes the shorter formats of Profane Nexus and condenses them that bit further to deliver stabs of quality death metal that say their piece and then get out of the way ready for the next track to deliver it's menacing messages.

I won't pretend this is death metal that is new in any way, shape or form.  You've heard this before, most definitely from the same band no doubt (despite the tweaks to the sound I mention above).  But there's still a nonchalant confidence here that sort of tells you to expect nothing else and if I am honest, I don't want anything else.  Pretty much for the same reason that I still look forwards to Cannibal Corpse releases, I know exactly what I am getting from Incantation.  I am not sat here waiting for wheels to be reinvented, I just want my death metal fix and I want it done well.  Box ticked.

Starting out as a thrash metal band in the late noughties, Auroch had developed into a blackened death metal outfit by the time they got round to their third full length.  With nods to the sounds of Grave Miasma, Portal and Mitochondrion through out the record, Mute Books offers a chaotic and sonic adventure into a swarming maelstrom of horror and hideous form.

Regrettably this incarnation of evil doesn't always work out that well.  There's some clunky structures here amidst the cloying madness that even given their surroundings stand out as being a little too odd at times.  The weak shouting of the ironically titled Say Nothing is one such track that is burdened with this miscalculated delivery not withstanding the fact that there are also some very unexpected and equally odd female spoken word passages added in also to add to this cumbersome feel.

The vocals range from a Benton-like, venomous spit to a cavernous almost death doom like style and the guitars deliver a tremolo picked sound that mines the tracks they span over to the point of entering your skin it seems.  They feel sharp, as does the tightness of the drum work which is one of the albums more memorable parts overall with Zack Chandler displaying his skills well across all tracks.  The production job is decent enough also, letting all parts work in unison on the instrument front whilst still allowing the vocals to lead and carry the sound forwards.

Overall it is a respectable foray into blackened death metal that just gets it's shoe laces tangled together on a couple of occasions but never quite goes flat on it's face as a result.

The dank and murky vision captured on the album cover acts as a great representation of the fetid death metal that lies within the six tracks on offer on Krypts 2019 offering.  Hailing from Finland the band retain that classic Finnish death metal style, producing a cavernous and expansive sound that seems to fill all corners of the room when listening to the album.  Far from being new to the game the band do seem to have hit their stride though on this their third full-length release in ten years of recorded output.  There’s a real sense of consistency to these tracks all showing an agility for songwriting that you’d expect from a band who have been working on material for a decade.

For an album with only six tracks the record feels longer than the thirty seven minutes that make up its runtime.  There’s a vastness to the structures of each of these songs that allows each track sufficient space to build and grow in stature without ever outstaying their welcome.  Not always sticking to an atmospheric or looming build that eventually gives way to a gargantuan riff the album shows variety in pace, tempo and structure also.  This isn’t easy to achieve over a relatively short runtime and with a sub-genre of death metal that has a particular form and sound that is so well established.  But the fact is that Cadaver Circulation delivers both in its adherence to a recognised sound and also in its innovation that stays away from the experimental side of “new” and just relies on applying that innovation in the form of solid songwriting.

I don’t think there’s a duff track on here and remarkably there’s little in the way of repetition.  Yes, there’s an aspect of similarity between most tracks (it’s part of the success of the record) but I feel you can easily draw clear divisions between tracks also and identify nuances of atmosphere and pacing at the same time.  I can’t think of many albums in recent history that have retained such memorability in my head after so few listens.  Four listens in and I can recite a lot of this in my head to the point I can write this review without the album playing and that to me is the sign of a good record.

Despite the relevance of it I am not a fan of the artwork and that’s all that shaved a half mark off an otherwise superb album.

I find that some albums get talked about in hushed tones amongst peers, internet forums and album reviews generally.  There's a catgeory of albums in most genres of music that has a label akin to "Classic Album Not Freely Recognised As Such".  Quite where these albums go to after release in terms of the recognition stakes is no real mystery when you think about it, with most of them being released around a particular boom time for a genre and them just getting lost in the plethora of qualty releases of the time only to be picked up in years to come and almost reborn in some cult status awarde by devout fans of the genre.

Malevolent Creation's second album is one such album that comes up now and again in such conversations, and whilst I don't believe it does necessarily warrant a "classic" tag as such there's still so much to appreciate about this record that it is really unfortunate that it is not up there with the regard I hold for Last One On Earth, Acts of the Unspeakable, Tomb of the Mutiliated, Legion. The IVth Crusade or Onward to Golgotha all of which landed in the same year as this record.

There's certainly a rabid edge to Retribution that matches the Deicide release quoted and there's certainly a level of intensity to proceedings that draws comparison to the Cannibal Corpse release also of the same year.  These comparisons come from Hoffman's vocals and the pummeling attack of the instrumentation in no small parts but I actually don't get on with the vocals that well.  If anything, at times I find he has too much to say and things become a little cumbersome around the delivery and flow of the tracks.  The rest of the time he's doing nothing wrong and things feel much more cohesive and structured.

That niggle withstanding (and as Ben alludes to in his review) this is actually a great death metal album that simpy gets overlooked by more prominent and more obvious classic releases from the same year.  There's nothing new here most definitey and whatever the reason may be that you find yourself coming late to the record it still hampers the experience of it because you will have already heard such great output both from the same year and subsequently over the years.  Still worthy of a spin though.

The harsh and unforgiving sound of Xasthur is in full flow on Malefic's 2007 release. Recorded on an analogue 8 track between 2006 and 2007, the usual desolate and dank ambience is blended with subtle attempts at rhythm and slow burning guitars that painfully pick out some arpeggio like tremolo sounds.  Occasionally there's the ghastly, whispered vocals polluting the ether with their foul and nefarious intent still smothered by the dense atmosphere that covers everything.

The haunting and ethereal atmospheres that comjured here do possess their own surreal beauty and entice the listener into the malignant environment of the record.  Over twelve agonising tracks the album takes you the end of a tattered and threadbare rope from which hangs all the depressive notions of one of black metal's finest purveyors of the DSBM sub-genre.  There's little in the way of comfort to be found here (unless you are in a very dark place already one would assume), tracks are almost mercilessly drawn out as they baste in their own melancholic juices slowly cooking the life out of themselves.

As difficult a listen as this is you can't help but admire the effort that goes into writing, recording and sharing such raw emotion and melancholic thought that took over a year to put together.  If it is hard to listen to imagine how the artist themselves must feel.  Amidst the dissonance and the reverberating there remains constant structure and melody, albeit it does get a little too off-kilter sometimes to sound anything other than just poor musicianship or lacking in compositional awareness.

There's more than one occasion where things just sound a little too basic - which I get is sort of the point - and over twelve tracks this does start to get arduous from just over halfway through.  I found myself wanting the album to end a lot sooner than it did.  It is not like any sudden change of style or direction is going to occur to make you want to stay engaged for longer so the predicatbility factor is quite high here.  If you like your music to feel like some wet fabric draped over you, slightly inducing a sense of panic and cloying at your throat with talons of jagged misery then this is right up your street. 

For memorable yet varied songs, the dilligent metal listener would not be disappointed with Borknagar's tenth studio album.  There's hooks galore in here, aided well by the still slightly off-kilter and cumbersome vocals of Vintersorg (and others) to add further memorability and emotional layers at the same time.  By now the black metal elements of Borknagar have all but disintegrated, with only the occassional harsh vocal passage from the aforementioned Vintersorg giving the listener some sense of the old incarnation of the band.  The album is progressive without being complex and as a result sits in the brain for days after just one listen.  I woke up this mornng with Cold Runs the River ringing around my head following its appearance on a recent shuffle playlist.  This is a great example of the content of the album as a whole, with its varying tempos, subtle time changes and solid, robust structure.

There's still a feel of folkly momentum to a lot of the tracks as well, as the instruments hit that almost medieval melody mid-flow often done so subtley that you don't notice.  At the same time there's a proficiency for the riff that is never too far away, occasionally deploying a cheeky tremolo here and there to keep the roots of the band showing.  The clean vocals drive this folk element more than anything else though with their storytelling style adding this depth to proceedings well.  Across the whole album there's this effortless flow to the compositions, even when deploying more progressive elements or atmospheric notes beneath the main tide, the album feels cohesive and the songwriting feels well thought out, emotive and expansive.

On two tracks on here, every vocalist who has ever been in Borknagar sing.  A feat that whilst not perhaps totally unique in the history of music has probably rarely been done to such great success.  The title track and Terminus standout as two of the best songs on what in essence is already a brilliant album.  For any band to still be going, ten albums into their career is a feat worth recognition, but to still be going and producing such fine and memorable material is an added layer of brilliance deserving further applause.

Rammestein were the last band I saw live at the start of the noughties before I stopped going to gigs due to a damaged ear drum.  I had befriended another metal head in a call centre where I worked at the time and we went to a couple of gigs.  I recall American Head Charge were the support act and they were actually quite good.  Rammestein though were superb, full of theatrics and drama, displaying a real passion for their art.

I never owned an album by the band, think I bought a t-shirt at aforementioned gig but that was the extent of my merchandise.  Stumbling across the band in the depths of the Metal Academy and then seeing them in the feature section for this month got me interested enough in finally sitting down and listening to a whole album by them.  I am glad I did.

A couple of things got me off-guard if I am honest.  Firstly, how riffy Reise, Reise is.  It is chock full of the beggars making the album memorable and leaving me hungry for each track.  Secondly, how well the drama and theatrics that I witnessed on stage nearly two decades ago transpose brilliantly to the recorded output without becoming showy or needless.  There’s real atmosphere here, stabs of near symphonic keys and choir-like backing vocals that all add real depth to the sound.  I was also pleasantly surprised by how the emotion of the songs comes across so well.  Considering I speak no German the passion and eloquence of the songwriting really gives a real sense of expression and of intensity being shared.

Somewhere amongst the industrial edges and no-metal musings, Rammestein deliver a heartfelt and enlightening album, balanced in pace just enough to keep it interesting without sacrificing the memorability factor.  It’s only real flaw is that it is too long and needs a trim on the track listing.

At some point (may still be his view) Luc Lemay viewed From Wisdom to Hate as the natural progression from Erosion of Sanity as opposed to appearing after Obscura.  What Gorguts' fourth album represents is a mellowing of some of the avant-garde elements that made the previous album more jarring and obtuse to some listener's ears and reverted to some more familiar atavistic death metal that has become pretty much the trademark songwriting of the band.  Whereas Obscura was at times untidy amidst the rampant entertainment value of the record, From Wisdom to Hate offered a compositionally more grounded outing that relied on good songwriting as much as it did the challenging aspect of its predecessor.

There had been a three year gap since their previous release and the bulk of that time had been spent on tour as well as (for Luc at least) some intensive study taking up non-road time.  The large gap and distractions proved too much for an impatient Steeve Hurdle and he had chosen to leave the band over the inactivity whilst Patrick Robert had vacted the drum seat for the returning Steve MacDonald after the touring life proved too intense for Pat.  Having poached Martyr's Dan Mongrain into the Gorguts' camp, Luc set about teaching him the band's back catalogue and quickly found that the guy was pretty much a natural (he learned 4 songs from Obscura in just one evening) and so Mongrain got straight onto the songwriting credits for some three songs of his own and one co-written with Lemay.  Despite some pretty significant personnel changes, the band landed on their feet with a familiar face wanting to return and some highly-skilled, new blood to flex their artistry also.

The effect is obvious as the band bridged that gap between the inventive and eccentric nature of their last outing and the more familiar hue of more traditional death metal that charged the still pioneering direction of the band with an energy that most bands struggle to retain beyond their debut.  Although arguably for me the album needs a tad more of the Obscura vibe, From Wisdom to Hate was a fine pre-cursor to the next stage of Gorguts where the real clever stuff started to happen and their ability to write structural and deeply textured songs really took off.  Hearing what the band are putting out now can have those roots traced back to their fourth outing.  As solid as it is, there's a real feel for boundaries still getting pushed, only this time it is more subtle in how it delivers that, abandoning the full-on assault approach for more strategic-based deployment of their forces.  

For me there was some danger of this release getting lost in the discography as a lot of my attention has been on the third and fifth releases from the band.  I am glad I revisited this (purchasing a CD copy along the way) because From Wisdom to Hate is an essential release in the Gorguts' catalogue.  It takes the gold dust of Obscura and blends with the promise of Colored Sands and represents a band at the turning point in their career, fully-matured like some fine wine and ready to provide richness to the already plentiful dinner table.

Parabellum are considered to be the first extreme metal band from Colombia.  They sound exactly as you would expect based on that statement alone.  This two track EP is poorly produced, badly played and lacks any semblence of structure.  Now then, let's not skip the fact that this was 1988 and Colombia was hardly a hotbed of metal releases at this time.  I can't begin to imagine the challenges this band had setting up and trying to record and distribute material.  That withstanding though, beyond the underground appeal to this there is little in the way of anything else going for it.

The vocals are the only discernable sound that come through what sounds like a thick blanket being laid over all instruments.  The occasional drum hit can be heard and the riffing when it does come through is very punky with the odd squeal of a guitar to add metal credentials where felt necessary to do so.  The chaotic playing is too much when coupled with the primitive recording equipment and the lack of production, you just can't digest anything.  Their EP from 1987 Sacrilegio is even worse by the way.

I would hazard a guess that live, these guys would have slayed.  Their sheer attitude carrying them through a live set no doubt.  There's nothing to carry them through on a recorded format though.

Incantation's debut album is probably one of my more under-appreciated death metal albums when looking at the real "classics" of the genre.  As Ben alluded to in his review, there's some elements of inaccessibility to contend with at first but once you get a few spins under your belt things really start to embed in the old memory banks.  It is an album that crawls and races in equal portions is how I best describe the experience.  The pace is varied but the sound is always heavy and unrelenting.

For a band just three years into their existence, Incantation manged a debut in 1992 that was the embodiment of death metal.  Oppressive, dark, unapologetic and extreme in every sense of the word, the liner notes on the CD booklet took the opportunity in the "Thank You" section to say "Thank you all.  Disciples of Blasphemy, together we forever reign in darkness, as our souls roam horizons lost, we indulge in spiritual Desire!"  If you're a death metal fan, those words invoke sufficient levels of nefarious excitement in you to be forever an advocate of Incantation from the off, lost in the allure of the darkness they conjure over the course of Onward to Golgotha.

It's straight into a frenzied pace from the second the album begins and as I say it will take some degree of concentration to follow the record over the 11 tracks.  Along the way you will get to the death/doom blend that many subsequent bands have replicated over the years (I mean Incantation must be the most copied band in the history of music) as Pillard and McEntee riff the very flesh from your bones.  The drums of Jim Roe and the bass of Ronny Deo the perfect backdrop to the soundtrack to the sound of the apocalypse.

As a foundation stone, the debut record sets out Incantation's stall perfectly.  What has followed since on subsequent releases has been consistent with the promise that the first offering showed in piles.  Incantation have always been death metal and  after twelve full-lengths, numerous EP's and live releases the band have never once strayed  away from their relentless style.

I often think that Gorguts grew almost too quickly for their own good.  I mean an album of the ilk of Obscura getting dropped by a band just three records into their career is mind-boggling, even with a five year gap between it's predecessor.  Already by the time the band got around to their sophomore record you could pracitcally hear the cogs whirring around in the heads of most DM fans wondering how a band could develop and mature so quickly in just two years.  The Erosion of Sanity was a real beast to have to contend with as a standalone record, let alone a follow up to an already solid and very capable debut that had heads looking at the band already.  When a band hones its art that quickly and that deftly you have to forgive those that get left behind in the fan base.  If you got stranded at The Erosion of Sanity by Obscura I kind of understand it.  I mean the second album from Gorguts is superb.  Varied, dense and technical are just some of the words you could throw in its direction but overall it is still a solid, consistent and pummeling experience for the die-hards of the scene to lap up.

Reading Ben's review earlier, he's absolutely right on the Suffocation comparison, as the influence of that band is painted all over the walls of this record.  As a result the album has a constant weight to it no matter what the frequency of the tempo being played is.  This density provides atmosphere for virtually the whole record, even on the acoustic strings that introduce the closing track Dormant Misery there is a sense of impending peril in the air.  Yet at the same time the whole record has a rabid and urgent style to it that instills a sense of nervous anxiety in the listener as they track the intense and unrelenting delivery of some fine death metal.

The technical aspect to the sound goes slightly unnoticed at the first couple of listens making this an album that rewards frequent visits to it as you start peel back the initial layer of acute brutality that you think is the sole purpose of the album to find further layers of textures beneath for you to assess and understand.  Tracks like Orphans of Sickness are what true technical death metal is all about, shifting and surging like some turgid river in the midst of monsoon season.  The song feels vile and putrid yet there's no doubt that fiendish and devilish hands were present in its construction to provide a masterful and unsettling edge at the same time.

I am slowly getting to owning all physical copies of Gorguts' discography because they are a band who have yet to put a foot wrong across a career that has seen them take a well-known genre with a distinct sound and direction and push the boundaries of it into the outer-stratosphere.  The Erosion of Sanity is when the rocket boosters kicked in and took them clear of most of the competition at the time.

This was the first of his releases that I recall saw the buzz around Tristan Shone first starting to reach the "What Are You Listening To Now" threads on the various metal forums I frequented at the time.  This and the follow up Ursus Americanus had certainly seen enough cursory glances from me on Bandcamp to warrant at least a try of the music, but somehow I never got around to it.  It wasn't until 2018's Beastland that I finally sampled some of Shone's industrial majesty, being impressed enough to retain it in my stream subscription for occasional replay.  As with most artists, I rarely start at the beginning of the discography (and I haven't even achieved that yet here with this review - there's at least a couple of albums before this one for me to catch up with) preferring to just dip in here and there and build up my experience of an artist gradually.

I sensed promise in the Author & Punisher back-catalgoue for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, the guy makes his own triggers, controllers and instruments himself from raw materials.  I find this gives the music some primitive allure.  Kind of like when as a kid you'd make drum kits out of oil drums and upturned boxes, only this is obviously light years ahead in terms of technical knowledge to engineer such machines to produce recorded output.  The second hint of hope I had for Shone and his music is the fact that it managed to bridge the gap between industrial, mechanised torture and actual, discernable songs.  Although the title of the album kind of gives away the content to some degree, this is not mindless droning or racket for racket-making's sake, it is thought out structures that cross over into the realms of drone metal just as easily as industrial metal also.  Lust for Scales for example is like a monstrous, robotic Tony Iommi riffing around the studio with the expected familiar pummeling intensity.

On the whole, Drone Machines works.  It lacks some range in terms of variety of its own varied niche in the world of music and although I acknowledge the fact that there are songs stood as structures, they don't all feel like they were bottomed out as complete ideas before being committed to tape.  Tracks such as Beginning of End are just filler unfortunately and push the patience levels in me as a listener to the point of reaching for the skip button.  But, whilst it needs a trim in a couple of places, album number three from San Diego's number one noise terrorist still has lots of legs to hold the attention for the record duration.  Its most clever trait perhaps is the ability for it to generate so much power both in terms of sound and density at the same time.  It truly "fills" your ears and your head at times, starting from some bone-jarring drone at the base of your neck that expands into auditory assault by intelligent use of rhythm and percussion alongside the more experimental noise aspects also deployed.  Check out Blue Flame for a great example of this balance and smart application of opposing musical fare.

I might be a deacde late, but I am glad I got here in the end.

The (current) middle release in the Vanum back-catalogue lacks any of the promised brilliance of the debut and feels like a half-arsed effort to just record a couple of tracks one wet weekend in March.  The endless wailing tremolos just hang like some dense smoke in the air leaving an eventual acrid taste at the back of your throat.  None of the three tracks on offer glean much in the way standout moments and so the experience just feels like a real drag to sit through - even if only for twenty four minutes.

Without anything in the way of song progression or expansion things just become staid and flat despite the melodic pummeling of the riffs seemingly trying to force some hope through the dull hue of a frankly pointless release.  A step backwards following a promising debut whose potential is still not realised by the third release also.

Life is too short for some things.  I would class the much lauded 2002 release from Portland's Agalloch as befitting this description perfectly.  I mean, don't get me wrong there's much debate to say how it is a masterpiece of post-rock/metal influenced blackened folk-metal as the album takes you through the complete tour of the sub-genre it manages to create with the release of this album.  But at the same time it is obvious (to my ears at least) that this is very niche and no matter how well it is done it is a lot to take in.

In all seriousness, The Mantle is simply too big for it's boots.  It isn't consciously trying to be too smart or clever but I feel that somewhere along the way it starts to disappear up it's own rectum.  The album feels like it is too personal for sharing with a wider audience, like it's direction could only be understood by a gifted few (who I doft my hat to) instead of any semblance of "mass" consumption.  This is of course the risk most artists take when releasing anything and I can't discount the fact that this album is more or less universally praised virtually everywhere I look, but for me the reward for listening is more way off expectations.

Instead of coming across as expansive, the whole thing feels sprawling and arduous.  The genuine feeling is that I am being burdened with something by taking the time to sit through the record and whilst that "something" is never unbearable it certainly is draining nonetheless.  I can cope usually with vast soundscapes with atmospheric sweepings and wooshes, but here things feel uninteresting and unnecessary as the record progresses.  There's no defining moments and as a result the whole thing just feels like one long-winded experience.

From what I have read about John Haughm and the demise of Agalloch this record feels like the circumstance surrounding that sudden ending to the band, uncertain and not entirely clear on what the hell's going on.

Zakk Wylde's drawling vocal style makes my shit itch.  It sounds forced and fake a lot of the time and is one of the main blockers to me exploring more of BLS' music.  For some reason though, on Mafia Wylde finds the correct blend of vocal nonsense and (albeit limited) levels of decent songwriting just enough to hold my interest.  What develops over far too many tracks is a passable attempt at some energetic heavy metal that only really falls short due to a complete lack of filter on the quality control department.

I don't profess to know much about Wylde's career beyond Ozzy Osbourne, friends with Dimebag and he likes baseball a lot.  His guitar playing style on what snippets I had regularly heard seemed to move between shredding and grooving with a lot of chunky riffs thrown in for good measure.  I don't mind his six string exploits, in fact I would go as far as to say that on Mafia they hold my interest more than anything else on display here.  I can actually remember bits of his work on the lead guitar and still have a discernable chug from the rhythm parts of his repetoire also having listened to the record a couple of times.

The first thing that starts to kill it for me is the production job (granted I am listening on stream so the rip quality might be the problem) but things seem clumsily mixed, almost to the point of distraction.  There sounds almost like there is a flimsy membrane between some of the instruments and in the jostling to get heard only Zakk's guitar stands out.  If I am honest Nunenmacher feels largely lost throughout the record and it feels like the songs are all incomplete in some regard, even in the more high-intensity moments.

Next I have issue with the tracklisting.  This album doesn't need fifteen songs (and most definitely not a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover), in fact it needs around ten as a maximum as by the time I get past Too Tough To Die I need a fucking break.  Just stopping for a minute to execute good ideas better, at the expense of a few filler tracks would have made this album a much more enjoyable experience.

Finally, there's no getting away from those vocals in the long run.  On the opening track Wylde actually just makes noises in time with the music for sections of the track which is just nonsense.  JUST PLAY MORE INSTRUMENTS INSTEAD IF YOU'RE THAT SHORT ON THE LYRICS FRONT.  Other than the poor production, the inconsistent songwriting, the overburdening arrangement and the vocals of a blues singer trapped in a washing machine on a spin cycle there's not much wrong with this.

Vanum occupy that spot in melodic black metal that doesn't rely on pushing any boundaries or branching out in any new direction and instead just sticks with an established format being done well.  These Americans have crafted their art to being assured yet only flirting with the threat of predictability.  As I listen through Ageless Fire there's a fair share of  moments that I can see coming with my eyes shut, yet they still are relevant and of value to the overall piece. 

Vanum is the brainchild of two established black metal artists.  Kyle Morgan of Ash Borer and Michael Rekevics of Fell Voices (and others) put the band together and so the credentials of the band are strong on paper and also in the reality of what gets delivered.

The melodies are almost studious in their application and successfully frame the more uptempo passages on tracks (Eternity) giving breathing space from the at times relentless charge.  When in full-flow the band has a full and enriched sound that encapsulates all component parts of the instruments and vocals.  The muffled sounding vocals feel blended in the swarming pace of the bands more aggressive moments as opposed to ever being lost and the thoughtful use of atmosphere helps to define clear start and end points over what is quite a short tracklisting.

The drums are of particular note on here but are perhaps the one aspect of the instrumentation that gets lost in the mix at times.  When allowed to they pound and pummel away, driving the attack of those tremolo-rampant guitars that spearhead the charge for much of the record.  The keys that provide that smattering of atmosphere do a great job in the sense that they are so subtle that you at first don't notice them.  When you do clock them they support the rapturous melody of the leads perfectly (Under The Banner Of Death).

All of the goodness here is supported by a very warm sounding production which almost gives the album a Hellenic feel at times yet there are a fair few temperature reducing moments of bone-chilling beauty to satiate the appetite of the more kvlt listeners out there.  Overall, Vanum deliver a solid and dependable second full-length that relies on sharp songwriting and straight forward delivery to get their message across.

So here's the thing.  For a guy who doesn't particularly like nu-metal, Deftones occupy a hefty portion of artists beginning with "D" in my music library.  I first got turned onto them after a brief drift away from metal saw me return and immediately become enamoured with Diamond Eyes and I subsequently worked my way back to the greatness of White Pony as I checked out their back catalogue.  Somehow I never got beyond Around The Fur though.  For no logical reason my sub-conscious told me that the debut album would not be for me as although I enjoyed Around The Fur it still bordered on being a little too nu-metal so by proxy the debut would be way too much.

I was wrong.  To a point.  Whilst Adrenaline clearly is dripping with nu-metal it's greatest challenge is that it is not entirely well written or composed.  Now, given the fact that this is the band's debut record some slack has to be cut, however the band had already been together (albeit with an unstable line-up) for seven years at this point and I still would expect a little more deftness in the songwriting department after nearly a decade of trying to get a debut together.  The thing that saves the record for me though is the application (be it intentional or not) of the taut emotion that broods throughout the record, occasionally peering out from the at times directionless and uniform music to show the first glimpses of what really started to take hold on White Pony some five years after this.

This recognisable trait is the saving grace for me.  Having started later in the bands's discography I can forgive it being in this raw and misfiring state as it gets drip-fed through the under-developed riffs, sterile production and lazy vocal delivery.  I know it is sub-par but it is entirely understandable as I know that they honed this primitive sack of reactive feelings and on later records used it as sentiment and sensation to deliver some meaningful and memorable records.

Taken as a standalone debut album it makes virtually no waves in my lake, but knowing the rivers it feeds further on it increases in importance almost organically.

Side projects can be hit and miss in my experience and Max Cavalera and Alex Newport's punky, industrial, thrash effort from 1994 lands in the "miss" section for me.  As much as I enjoy the thrashy elements on this record I don't think they are a million miles away from Sepultura output for the time and so don't really bring anything new to the table for my money.  By contrast the punky songs work a tad better but aren't particularly unique or that overly authentic so just come off as Max and Alex pissing about in the studio.

There isn't much direction here overall and I get that this was probably a deliberate thing but in the end the record just sounds thrown together.  I mean the attempt to break up the pace that is Sum of your Achievements just feels like it is in there for the hell of it.  The next track after it Cockroaches feels disjointed and poorly structured which makes the middle section of the album the part where I start to switch off.

For all the angst-riddled attitude on display here it doesn't come off as leaving me with an overall feeling of anger or rage being expressed, more a sense of bewilderment and confusion if I am honest.  I mean, yes my foot gets stomping to For Fuck's Sake but only for the brief occasions that it actually gets going.  The rest of the time I am looking at the screen wondering what the fuck is going on?

It soon becomes too formulaic and I just find myself skipping more tracks than I listen to as I get bored waiting for things to get going.  Not one of Max's best moments.

Following up Seven Churches was always going to be a tough ask for a band who hadn't been around all that long by the time they rolled around to their sophomore release.  In just over two years Possessed had done two demos and two full-lengths as well as extensive touring and on album number two they sounded tired, flat and uninspiring.

The argument that this was the wheel they had previously invented on their debut just turned out once more to utilise a winning formula falls short on the fact that this is not actually a patch on the debut.  It's a lifeless shell of a record that sounds like it was released just for the hell of it or to meet some contractual obligation (which I don't believe was the case).  The riffs are unimaginative and lacking in punch, the song structures are bland and repetetive throughout and Jeff's vocals just come across as lazy and frankly half-arsed.

It genuinely feels like a record that was put together under extreme duress or by over-confident individuals who thought their ability better than it was or that the reputation gained from their debut was enough to just pass out the same style with no thought to the content.  It isn't even the debut regurgitated, it is the acid reflux of releasing a  landmark album that brings bile up into your mouth and you swiftly just swallow it back down and rinse away the taste.

Paradise Lost have been around for as long as I can remember.  Throughout my thirty plus years of metal listening they have always been on some mag cover or being praised by peers and acquaintances alike, but somehow have never ended up on my turntable (albeit a virtual one) until today.  I have heard bits of them now and again and have always gotten on with Holmes input in Bloodbath, but for some reason I have been compelled to check them out.  On another haunt I frequent this record is getting multitudinous praise so I curiosity has finally gotten the better of me.

As a standalone release it isn't half bad, arguably you'd expect a band with three decades of experience to be able to deliver though right?  The obvious highlights are Holmes' vocals and Mackintosh's guitar work and whilst this does not mean that either are perfect they are certainly the commanding performances that you remember.  Where one element slips a bit or doesn't work for whatever reason the other steps in and raises things back to the consistent level that gets benchmarked virtually from the off.

Starting an album with a slow burner like Darker Thoughts is a bold move that the band pull off well; the track grows nicely imparting an expanding sense of menace and threat which sets the tone nicely for the rest of the record.  It stays with you as well.  Notwithstanding the fact it was one of the tracks to get a video, the song feels personal without being soppy.  Its density is the weight of the woe in the lyrics and the emotionless style works well in the delivery of this melancholic opener.

There's a lurching energy to Fall From Grace and Forsaken that is oddly appealing as I am not sure I love them that much as tracks but somehow there's enough effort been put into the songwriting that I can't seem to not listen to them even when they feel a little off-kilter.  On these tracks it is usually Greg's guitar that saves them from the skip button and the tone of his lead work is dripping with melancholy and the crunch of his and Aedy's rhythm guitar work is bone-jarring at times whilst they are also perfectly capable of applying more than sufficient melody to support the dank, gothic atmospheres of most tracks.

It's a tad too long as an album and I count three tracks that I can do without that are more forgetable as opposed to being awful.  Overall though it sounds like an accomplished record by a band who know how to write songs and compose a record competently.  I am not blown away but I am suitably impressed to wonder if I have been missing something al these years.

Summoning's opening foray into the world of black metal is the authentic harsh and abrasive style most fans of the genre love to hear.  It is a complete misrepresentation of the rest of their discography mind so is not a good gauge of future offerings which is both a gift and a curse depending on where you sit on the band's unique sound.  It sounds very much like a debut album would do full of excitable riffing and kvlt vocals but it also suffers from this same enthusiasm in equal parts.

Lugburz is instantly forgettable as a record because the quality control was more or less switched off during songwriting.  All ideas were deemed good ones it seems and the album swallows and regurgitates itself over a number of times as passages and tracks just merge into one another with riffs getting used over and over again.  The authenticity factor is obvious as I say but the actual intelligence behind the composition of a track is not the best.

The vocals never quite get to add depth or dimension to proceedings with any notable howls or shrieks to entice the ear beyond the repetitve nature of most tracks.  As is the case with most albums that suffer from this lack of invention, the experience seems longer than it actually is and you find yourself waiting for it all to end or itching to press the skip button.

Top marks have to be given for the effort even if the delivery is immature and as I say above this is the only album the band released that really sounded this way, the rest of the back-catalogue being more atmospheric and epic in nature.  Here this is only hinted at by the intro track at the beginning of the record so if you are a fan of the latter output and have never got round to their earlier stuff you can save yourself the bother on this.

All good things must come to an end they say.  Too much of a good thing is bad for you, etc, etc.  Quotations aside, Metallica had actually peaked for me before they went all accessible on this record.  The technical thrashing agility of ...And Justice For All was the band at the pinnacle of their powers, showing their maturity as a group and promising yet bigger and better things to come.  And then came their self-titled release...

I actually don't think it is a bad record and would actually go as far as to say that anyone would be hard pushed to find many other albums that unleashed such a perfect blend of thrash metal and more traditional metal influences so effortlessly.  At the time of the release I was actually playing the record like five times a day and had no qualms about the ballads or more commercial aspect of the album overall.  I stand by those sentiments somewhat to this day, albeit with acknowledgment that the impact of it has diminished somewhat now I am the proud owner of each album that came prior to this.

Although nowadays it comes up short in comparison with anything the band did before it there's no denying that there's tracks here that are forever engraved in the ridges of my memory.  Whether it is the riff to Enter Sandman or the eastern style promise of the guitar on Wherever I May Roam or even the chopping rhythm of The God That Failed there's stuff here that has quality if not edge.  It is precisely the kind of record that gets recorded that sends bands stratospheric (due in no small part to Bob Rock's input) and ticks all the boxes for that journey.  There's not one song on here that wouldn't sound just as good live as it does in the studio.

As I mention above, there's just too little in the way of comparison to previous output to benchmark this record as being that good a Metallica album.  It sounds like Metallica most definitely but it lacks for me the cut and thrust of a thrash metal band.  It could be the polish of the production job but I get no real feel from the album nowadays ulike when I am listening to the potent rage of Master of Puppets for example.  If like me, you believe the band might as well have split up after this release then it is not a bad record as such to hang your hi-top trainers up on but in some ways I would have been happier to see them call it quits immediately after ...And Justice For All and protect their legacy somewhat better.

I often find that listening to a Motörhead album is a bit like catching up with an ambitious friend or relative who come over to stay or visit.  They always start off full of promise from their past endeavours and successes but soon enough the gaps start to appear in their plans for wealth beyond belief or delivery of some game-changing solution that will rock the world.  You find yourself nodding along politely, thinking to yourself that this is the same conversation you had the last time you caught up but you don't want to upset their feelings so you just keep humouring them.  Come the end of the visit, you stand waving them off at the end of the driveway inviting them to come back soon, when inside a voice is saying "but don't make it too soon!"

After the mediocre Another Perfect Day the line-up of the band was revised completely.  The normally superb Brian Robertson was gone after one album and Phil had vacated the drum seat.  Pete Gill had stepped into Phil's shoes (for his one and only Motörhead full-length release) and we now had two guitarists in the legendary Würzel and Phil Campbell.  The revised line-up did nothing to reinvigorate the band at first listen and this is perhaps to be expected with them all being relatively new to things.  However, the band do all sound on the same (albeit predictable) page.  What we get is a return to the sex, drugs and rock n' roll themed song writing that was missing on the previous album.  Back in place also therefore is the tongue in cheek attitude and a loss of desire to talk about current affairs and the boring stuff.

Sadly though, although the pace and tempo is a lot more consistent and upbeat, there's a sense of a tired sound to things.  Even on the charging Claw with its cock out doing a helicopter mentality, it still feels a bit flat.  Throughout the whole record there's the usual rock n' roll riffs on display and the slower paced/mid-tempos of Another Perfect Day aren't around most of the time.  This gives Würzel and Campbell chance to flex their pecs with racy solos and rampant riffs which at least gives the fan hope for future releases with the partnership involved.  But this energy just feels limited, possibly as part of a bedding in process as I alluded to earlier.  Gill is nowhere in the mix in all honesty and feels buried under the rest of the instruments in the main which might also account for the lack of oomph!

I also think the album lacks at least one anthem even.  I used to think was the title track but listening back today I realised that I actually prefer the Sepultura cover of the track.  Other than perhaps Built for Speed there are no memorable songs at all here and so it just lacks reward for sitting through the many mediocre tracks hoping to be embellished with a anthem or two.

The great thing about this Guardians: Heavy Metal - The 2nd Era challenge is that I am getting to revisit so many albums from my youth and if nothing more, this has been a great nostalgia trip.  I can remember when Metal Church adorned a rare status in my vinyl collection of being one of the few bands with more than one LP in there as at one point I had this record and A Blessing In Disguise in my collection.  At the time I think The Dark had the edge over the latter release.  It looked like the front cover to a horror movie for a start whereas A Blessing in Disguise looked like a family photo shoot in comparison.

Given my dislike of the debut album (or at least my acknowledgment that it is highly overrated) it was refreshing to hear David Wayne again during my research for this review.  Given my general dislike of the self-titled some two years prior to this I had kind of dismissed Wayne as only being around for one decent release and in doing so had been doing his performance on the sophomore release a little injustice.  As I say, this is the only release I have time for with Wayne on vocals but his presence really came across today on the final run through I did coming into this review.  His gruff and nasal style is consistent but the delivery of it is varied, sometimes coming across as tuneful and accessible, others more aggressive and thrashy whilst at times it is almost spoken word.  Wayne's vocals are tempered perfectly against the pace and tempo of the music and with the step up in the quality of the album in comparison to the debut his performance is more accessible and the excellence of him is much more obvious.

There's a real high-point early on in the record with the thrashing energy of the anthemic Start the Fire, a track that often reminds me of Overkill whenever I hear it.  It is an infectious track, placed really well after the promising Ton of Bricks and makes for a great start to the record.  Whilst I can't deny that Method to Your Madness and the superb Watch The Children Pray showcase superbly the quality of the song writing, coupled with Date's crisp yet not too polished production letting all the individual parts shine they are great tracks early on in the record.  Vanderhoof and Wells' guitar work is sublime more or less throughout the album but again the lead work in particular is really prominent and memorable on these tracks.

I think the album arrangement is great, the balance of a few higher tempo tracks running before a more measured and sultry track comes in makes for a very palatable experience.  Kicking off side two with the menacing title-track is a great move, that threatening build sets the mood perfectly to introduce the second part of the album and as it runs its course the track manages to maintain this atmosphere well without sacrificing any power along the way.  After the blistering yet not all that memorable Over My Dead Body this is a marked step back up in quality and puts the album firmly back on the tracks.  

Things do tail off markedly though during the rest of the album after Psycho bashes its way clumsily through three and a half minutes of weapons grade filler we get the more promising Line of Death that follows a similar tempo and poorly structured format also.  There's a section in the latter song that I swear is the same bridge as used on the title-track as well.  However, there is some aspect of a measured approach around the halfway mark that helps avoid the skip button being deployed for two songs in a row.  With Burial at Sea ensuring there's at least one more quality track before the album gets done it's hard to not see The Dark as a success overall.  It is consistent in terms of quality (in the main) and is probably the most entertaining Metal Church album in the discography.  Whilst it is far from flawless, it is easily their most promising offering with Wayne in the band and there's a sense of sadness that this was probably the album that would have lined up their next offering as potentially their finest hour given the strength on display here.  Obviously that wasn't to be and the band more or less started again when it came to their third release.

Warlock in 1987 where a different concept to the band that came together some three to four years earlier.  Having already lost Rudy Graf ahead of True as Steel the subsequent departure of Peter Szigeti in the intervening year between their third and fourth record meant that neither of the founding guitarists where now present in the band.  Remaining founding member Eurich was the only original member left standing after the departure also of Frank Rittel.  With longstanding vocalist Doro still around it kind of sounds to me that she carries the band through much of Triumph and Agony.

That's not to say that Arvanitis and Bolan aren't capable guitarists.  Indeed, I find the guitar performances on here really good.  They are energetic and full of flair when in full-flow with the leads holding my interest levels well.  It is clear though that they are sat back in the mix a little too much and would definitely benefit from a little more volume in places.  Doro's vocals sit upfront and it is her gruff and sensual voice that is the consistent take away from the album each time I listen to it.  Eurich's drums feel a little stifled too in all honesty but you can hear all parts of the instrumentation without having to search too hard and there is cohesion to the band performance and each track is also able to standout in its own right.

Even the dreadful Metal Tango has identity at least (if not a disparaging lack of quality also).  Taken as a whole, the album is entertaining, catchy and memorable.  They are working with an established formula here with hi-octane riffs and smattering of NWOBHM plod still present, balancing the mix with a couple of more slower tracks like Make Time for Love.  I don't find the album as fantasy-themed as the artwork suggests (top marks for that Geoffrey Gillespie) and there's an undercurrent of political unrest here in some songs.

So, the last incarnation of Warlock went out with a bang at least ahead of the legal disputes that saw Doro go it alone for the rest of her career.

In our quest to be able to pigeon-hole everything in our listening habits we occasionally come across a band whose sound is so very clearly rooted in a particular genre, but it touches more than one influence outside of that niche that you question what you are listening to. Down Among the Deadmen is one such album. The majority of what you hear is straight up heavy/traditional metal. Stacked full of racing riffs and galloping rhythms, it is an album that draws extensively from NWOBHM as well as being comparable to the likes of Cirith Ungol, Manilla Road and Brocas Helm. There are even hard rock elements of Thin Lizzy around in here.

At the same time, you get an undeniable sense of Skyclad-like folk metal traversing tracks as the band continue to tell their tales of Celtic legend that they are so infamous for. But it is not just the elements of different styles that make their third full-length so endearing, in here as well is an almost abandonment of traditional song structure and form. That having been said it is still coherent to the point of being memorable. The stop/start riffing of Walls of Shame at first catches you off-guard, but you soon come to realise that is quite a simple structure that is unique more for its paired-back nature. On tracks like this you hear the Cirith Ungol/Manilla Road influence clearly, but at the same time you also get to hear how tight the band are as a result of this no-nonsense approach to the tracks.

It is impossible not to be caught up in the flowing delivery of the album as it uses a clever combination of storytelling and urgent yet concise song writing to draw you in. At times they seem to charge riffs or hold the revs on the engine of them for the effect of teasing and taunting the listener with the power that is inevitably about to be unleashed. As I move from track to track, I find myself anticipating the tempos and pace of the record with avid glee. Yet Down Among the Deadmen is not a predictable listen by any means. Leads and solos spark off from more rhythmical passages often unexpectedly, enriching the tales being told with lush six string sounds to emphasise points of conflict, majesty, atmosphere or emotion.

Mike Scalzi’s vocals do not occupy the same challenging area as a Mark Shelton or Tim Baker. There’s a theatrical slant to his pronunciation most definitely and it this that keeps things interesting and focused as at its heart this an album with a tale to tell and as such Scalzi fulfils his role perfectly. Tracks conjure wild imagery as they progress, and the superb musicianship adds to this sense of being able to create scenes in your brain and give them a soundtrack at the same time. You really do get a whole band experience here with everything clear in the mix and able to make a notable contribution, therefore.

Gregg Haa’s drumming is measured and yet in the same breath so especially important to the overall success of Down Among the Deadmen due to its power and persistence. I cannot find one track where he is not absolutely on point in delivering a robust and consistent performance yet at the same time still is able to let everything else around him breath easily. The twin guitars of Scalzi and Cobbett synchronise superbly throughout to again emphasise the feeling of cohesion within the recording process.

I do still find it an album that feels a tad too long at thirteen tracks. It is only 50 minutes long, but it feels longer and sometimes I do find myself all nerded out with the constant fantastical tales being told. That having been said, it is not an album that always takes itself so seriously. The marching section at the end of Troll Pack for example feels a little tongue in cheek without pushing the boundaries of being contrived. The album still is an absolute pleasure to listen to end to end and is probably Slough Feg’s finest hour to date. If you like your heavy metal traditional and played by skilful and deft musicians, then you’ll love this to death.

Dio until lately have been a one album band as far as I was concerned.  Beyond Holy Diver I was aware that there were other entries in the Dio back catalogue but for the life of me I could not get around to listening to anything other than what remains the bands finest moment.  Coming a whole four years after their debut, Dream Evil offers pretty much the same content as the masterclass in heavy metal they dropped in 1983, although it doesn't necessarily hit the same heights of quality.

The anthems are still here (at least in principle) but they aren't quite as infectious and as a result aren't that memorable.  Even the stupendously titled Sunset Superman with its chant like chorus suffers from a lack of traction.  The title track, Naked in the Rain and I Could Have Been A Dreamer all hit that sweet spot that you'd expect from a writer like Ronnie with the help of Appice, Bain, Schnell and Goldy who all contributed to the album also.  Unfortunately, there's a lot of filler on here also.  Overlove, Faces in the Window, All the Fools Sailed Away and When A Woman Cries are all sub par have no impact on the record overall other than to drag it down in the ratings.

Whilst this doesn't make Dream Evil a bad record it doesn't shine in anyway; it is lacking in bite overall even though it bares it's teeth on more than a few occasions over the course of the nine tracks.  I find myself kind of waiting for it to get going for a lot of the record and just as it does it seems to falter, often in the same breath.  Bain's bass sounds like a more lazy plod and pluck fest this time out and Schnell gets far too much air time on the keyboards to the point of taking the harder edges off most of the riffs.  Goldy is still allowed to shine though, his urgent and pressing lead work weaving stories all of their own when they kick in to life and Appice is solid and consistent just like you would expect.

Ronnie's vocal delivery is flawless though, he just knew how to control his voice so well throughout his career and again here the vocals maintain this pattern and even on the weaker tracks they are the star of the show.  I am unable to leave my experience of Dream Evil with the same levels of enthusiasm I have seen on other reviews for it and although it does make me want to delve into what came before it in the grey area between the debut and it I can't say I will be visiting the album much moving forwards.

Rob Halford’s desire to return to a more mainstream metal sound following his excursions with Fight and 2wo always strikes me as coming off as a poor man’s Judas Priest. I mean three years later he re-joined Priest who had been useless without him anyways so for me all two decidedly average album Halford albums did in the intervening three years was just allow him to get all the sub-par material off his chest.

Revisiting Resurrection for this review, I am immediately struck by how weaker than usual Rob’s vocals sound. He seems to be struggling through the title track to maintain that famed high-pitched style of his throughout the track and it seems to be a push too far. At the start of an album, this is not a good sign. Thankfully though Made In Hell is a marked step up in the energy stakes and is a riffy and bashy affair that only suffers from some clunky and naive sounding lyrics. The guitars flex their pecs well and drive the track forwards with only the drums feeling slightly understated and lacking oomph.

Appreciate as I do the need to keep busy and occupied, there still needs to be some quality control applied to making music – even when you are Rob Fucking Halford and are a God in many fan’s eyes. Locked and Loaded again picks up on the hi-octane metal pace of its predecessor but again sounds juvenile lyrically. Whether there is a sub-conscious element here playing on my mind because I know Rob is an older guy and therefore these lyrics sound a tad cringey remains a possibility however, at the end of the day I think this album shows that Priest are more than just Rob Halford and that when left to his own devices he does struggle without the rest of his comrades.

Let us take some time though to acknowledge the consistent positives that do still exist on this album. Lachman and Chlasciak are actually very capable guitarists and whilst I wouldn’t put them in the same class as KK Downing and Glenn Tipton they are a great accompaniment to Rob Halford’s distinct vocals. I would go as far as to say that they do rescue a few tracks and distract me nicely from the less enjoyable tracks, usually with a combination of solid riffing and/or energetic lead work. There is a consistent energy overall to the album and it feels like the teeth and claws are never too far away from being shown, even on the slower tracks there is still an edge.

Although not always well represented in the mix, Jarzombek’s drumming is solid enough and he does not put a stick wrong overall. The guest appearance from Bruce Dickinson however brings me back round to the negative aspects of the record. The One You Love To Hate is probably one of the worst tracks on the album, even the hazy and muffled guitar tone that attempts to inject some variety into the track is not able to save the track. For two well established and capable vocalists to put such a poorly conceived track together is disappointing to say the least.

There is nothing else on here really that alters my opinion that Resurrection is a poorly delivered album with some underdeveloped ideas that just feel hastily pulled together and dropped onto a record as opposed to being composed and written thoughtfully into an album. The final four tracks are all one word titles and have no depth or real quality beyond the odd burst of guitar to show some flair in the throes of the album. Drive might be the worst track Halford has ever been involved in but more or less everything beyond the Dickinson collaboration is clearly not written by a band with any quality control filter engaged.

For a person who prefers Di’anno-era Maiden to Dickinson-era Maiden, Bruce stepping out on his own was not a venture of any particular interest to me. His exit from the band in 1993 did not shake my world in all honesty. I recognised that their best years were already behind them at that point and the momentum built up throughout his twelve years in one of the world’s biggest heavy metal bands was most definitely on the wane.

Having witnessed even the furore around Tattooed Millionaire, I still was not curious enough to listen to it feeling that the snippets of the title track and that fucking irritating Bowie/Mott the Hoople cover I had picked up had done little to float my boat. The Chemical Wedding has been an album talked about in high praise for years of me frequenting internet forums or reading reviews in magazines or online. I think the reason why I still left the album overlooked was simply down to being much more interested in extreme metal for the latter part of my listening life and so it is an album that has always remained on my “to-do list”.

Researching the release for this clan challenge certainly educated me on a few things I had no idea about. I had no knowledge of Adrian Smith’s involvement for instance or that the album is semi-conceptual with a focus on some of William Blake’s works. Additionally, a film of the same title as the album was released with a screenplay by Bruce himself which again, I was blissfully ignorant of the existence of.

Listening through to the record this past week or so there is a familiarity to some tracks which suggests I have given the release a spin in the past on more than one occasion. For an album so clearly linked to two of the key personnel in Iron Maiden’s success, there is a lot more going on here on The Chemical Wedding that instantly shows the reason for its success. It is not that Dickinson is forcing anything on his fifth solo release, not trying to be nu-metal or more extreme (or grungey like on Skunkworks so I read) or even any darker. Instead, he delivers an album that is rich in historical reference but equally wealthy in terms of the consistent and robust heavy metal material that lands track after track.

The record reminds me a lot of Manilla Road (only less quirky in terms of vocal delivery – yet still comparable in places, Jerusalem for example), with a gritty and nostalgic edge to the guitars and a solidity to the percussion that fills the room as you play the record. Having assembled a throng of talented musicians such as Smith and Roy Z this success is not unexpected in all honesty, however at no point does the album disappear up its own arse and get wanky or outlandish. Arguably the most modern sounding track on the record is Trumpets of Jericho which has a kind of nu-metal vibe to it but still retains a sophistication that belies the snappy riffing and predictable rhythm section. This isn’t a mid-life crisis sounding record like Rob Halford decided to do with his self-titled project some two years after this. Instead, this is Bruce standing on largely familiar ground, farming this earth for a fine harvest.

There’s a couple of surprises on here too. I hear record scratching on Machine Men as it fades out and King in Crimson has a heavy, almost doom-like riff to kick the album off with. Album closer The Alchemist has a progressive element to it that is unexpected and well delivered, and herein lies the strength of The Chemical Wedding. This album is well performed, with a level of professionalism and subtle excursions into various territories that makes all those things even possible. Set against what could have been a dull and pretentious attempt to capture the dark majesty of William Blake, The Chemical Wedding emerges triumphant. Even the bonus track version doesn’t extend the experience in any negative light, serving instead to only further cement the heavy metal credentials of a record I am kicking myself for overlooking for so long.

All bets are off on this record as to just what the fuck you are going to get next on this twenty four and a half minute fest of spazzing, jerking and convulsing "murder metal" as it blasts its way through nineteen tracks of serial killer related lyrical gibberish. 

Humour aside, there's almost a lazy intelligence to this record that borders on genius. The shock value of taking some of history's most notorious serial killers and writing two minutes (max) songs about their exploits is niche I grant you. But to be able to expand on that by utlising some of the most simplistic lyrics adds an almost layman like style to proceedings that you just can't fail to be enamored by. Case in point, on track two Trampled to Death (a song about the death of 11 fans at a Who concert in the 70s): 

  "You went to see the Who 

And the people there trampled you

You were underneath their shoes

There was nothing you could do"

As laughable as it is, there's still very clear contrast between the baseness of the lyrics and the unpredictable nature of the music that serve as an excellent combination to give real dimension to proceedings. You see, this isn't just a few immature kids writing music to upset their parents, whether planned or not there is a striking juxtapose in the songwriting here that adds weight to the appeal of the record beyond just its lyrical or musical content in singularity. 

We got treated to more of the same in a slightly more structured way on the follow up to this release, Sinister Slaughter, which further cemented the band as a force to be reckoned with. However, the importance of the debut to both death metal and more specifically grindcore at the time is of massive importance, alongside World Downfall and Horrified from the same year.