UnhinderedbyTalent's Reviews
In case anybody still hasn't realised yet, I like my thrash metal as vicious as possible. The very essence that attracted me to thrash metal in the first place was the more primitive and aggressive end of the spectrum. Raging energy, lightning fast delivery and unapologetic attitude tick virtually all my boxes and float my boat to kingdom come.
Epidemic of Violence has all of the above highlighted characteristics in abundance. Whether it is the scathing vocals of Steve Reynolds, the pounding drums of the late Vinny Daze or the chugging riffs and warped leads of James Reilly and Derek Sykes, I am literally spoilt for choice on here. For the whole album there's a real sense of authenticity for the aggressive art form the band have chosen to pursue. Track by track things just get layered up with more riffs, sharper leads and blindingly paced rhythm sections.
A lot of people prefer the debut to this but I think the sophomore more than edges it. It takes the primeval style of the debut and adds some elements of refinement to make the assault seem more calculated this time around. It is just as terrifying as the first time around with the lyrical content being just as blunt and uncompromising as the crude utterances were on the debut. If you take a listen to the 2008 remaster you get hear these vocals in the live setting on four bonus tracks that underline the prowess on display on this record already.
Whichever version you have the pleasure of listening to, Epidemic of Violence is an absolute tour de force from start to finish and their finest offering over a discography of just three albums.
In the grander scheme of things, despite a career spanning nearly forty years and with my metal listening years fast approaching thirty, I only really started to get on with Overkill from about 2014. White Devil Armory received enough praise amongst peers for me to give it a whirl when previous attempts to engage with the band had been unsuccessful due to me not instantly getting along with Bobby's vocal style. Slowly but surely I began to unravel their vast and varied discography, picking my favourites and dismissing the less appealing releases over the past five or six years.
Horrorscope sits atop the pile of favourites. I find it one of the most consistent thrash metal albums in my collection if I am honest, perhaps even the most consistent of all. Surprisingly for me it is not an album that goes near the extremity of my preferred end of the thrash spectrum. The album is surprisingly accessible and catchy to find in my collection (considering that the likes of Condor and Sadus adorn my shelves as regular plays). I am a sucker for real chuggin' riffs and that motor engine like efficiency to the riffs on this album just pull me right in.
In terms of the aforementioned consistency they maintain this for eleven tracks which is no mean feat. Even the cover track doesn't trip the record up. It just feels full of running still even as it draws to a close. This was the final album before the groove elements started to creep into the band's sound and to be fair if you manage to achieve a great album like this then it is forgivable to try something new on future releases, although it wasn't as successful admittedly. I hear melody on Horrorscope as opposed to any real groove influence entering the fray and it is on these more obvious melodic moments such as New Machine that the record loses a bit of entertainment unfortunately. Not devastating but enough to keep the record away from a full five stars at least.
Life outside of the Big 4 of thrash metal isn't always as constant a struggle as you may be forgiven for believing. By the time their debut full-length dropped in 1987 Testament were sailing into very well-known waters for the average thrash metal fan. By this stage we had heard three Metallica albums, a multitude of Slayer albums including the much lauded Reign In Blood, a couple of solid releases from Mustaine and co and Anthrax had just dropped Among The Living a month earlier. The Legacy therefore had to land with a real splash to make any impact. Even though I wasn't around the metal scene then, it is clear from spinning the record some 30 years after it was released that it could hold its own against any of the aforementioned artists and their key albums to this point.
Whilst it wasn't as extreme as Reign In Blood or as accomplished as Master of Puppets, Testament had a major asset over everyone else in the ballpark at the time and his name was Chuck Billy and he gave The Legacy a unique edge over almost anything that thrash metal had heard before. I feel he is often overlooked as one of the most challenging of vocalists in thrash metal, with a gruff style that is more domineering than James Hetfield yet equally as racing as Tom Araya with the high-end shriek being another obvious if not obligatory thrash trait that he also had in the bag. As Testament grew, his style became more bellowing and boisterous but on the debut he found his feet quickly and established himself well in an already established scene.
The other thing that strikes me about The Legacy is how good the lead work is with Skolnick and Peterson doing energetic and well-paced solos on an album that isn't all that well produced to be fair (the mix leaves a fair bit to be desired in my book at least). There was also a real team effort on the songwriting front, with everyone barring Chuck putting in a shift and this shows certainly with the two guitarists (the chief songwriters) who sound cohesive and slick. Tracks like Alone In The Dark stick in your head for a lifetime after one listen and the energy throughout the whole thing is consistent. It never gets to Slayer-like speed yet still has a burning intensity akin to the aforementioned band, it just feels a tad more subtle in delivery.
Whilst obviously held back on the production/mixing job for me, The Legacy is still a great thrash metal record that deserves more credit than it often gets. The bits that shine - the vocals and guitars - are blinding. There are better debut albums yes but there aren't many of those bands with those better debuts still around building their own legacy like Testament still are.
One of the reasons why I enjoy Metallica’s debut album is the level of sheer, unadulterated pleasure that the band sound like they are having in delivering the album. That raw energy perfectly transposes into entertainment value and really captivates my interest some near forty years after it was released. One of the few other debut album releases that matches my experience of Kill ‘Em All is Slayer’s Show No Mercy, both in terms of that raw energy (which I find to be less cutting on SNM in all honesty) but also in how it encapsulates how fun it must be to be in a metal band.
The reason why I say this is because Slayer wear a lot of influences on their sleeve throughout SNM. NWOBHM is a big influence here which should come as no surprise given the year was 1983, however they did not merely copy these influences, verbatim. Instead, they used them as a solid foundation on which to progress the vibrant speed and thrash metal elements that dominated their sound. Whether it is the Maiden or Priest influences that are dashing through on the tracks or the cruder Venom-like moments, they are all being represented on Slayer’s terms.
I can excuse the poor production, in fact it is part of the charm of SNM, but I do find elements of the performances lacking still. Araya’s vocals show all the hallmarks of a conventional 80’s speed metal shriek but they do fall short in some places. He lacks the gruffness of Hetfield and places his inflections in the wrong place on more than one occasion. Equally, again with production aside, Lombardo just appears to go through the motions for most tracks. In terms of ability, it is only the relentless riffing that I find consistent here and it is this, alongside the astute use of influences that keeps the album at a four-star experience.
Although not on a par with Kill ‘Em All in terms of perfection, SNM still stands up as a defining album for The Pit clan since it explores the early niches of extremity that Slayer would come to represent within three years of this release. Whilst flawed in places, none of these are fatal to the success of the album and SNM did a fine job of doing enough to whet the appetite for what was to follow.
Always a pleasure to review virtually anything by Kreator up to 1990. In terms of Teutonic thrash metal they had a solid enough first five years. Their first five albums adorn the "k" section of my CD shelves and all get regular plays. After Pleasure to Kill (my gateway record into the band) the most played is probably Coma of Souls albeit for very different reasons to the sophomore. The rawness of their early days has not disappeared by this point it has been honed and transformed into structured and calculated attacks instead of wild stabbing frenzy and lashing out of limbs.
The band had started to go down this more mature route with the underwhelming Extreme Aggression some two years earlier. Although deft enough musicians to deliver it by this point, it felt that the energy and fury of the band's sound had been sacrificed somewhat; the follow up album got the recipe very much bang on for the most part thankfully. Coma of Souls is a really full sounding record, stacked high with riffs, crashing and bashing drums, drubbing bass tone and of course demented and deranged vocals.
Underpinning this fullness is a real sense of energy and spontaneity. Despite being the most mature and established sounding album of their career at the time, the basic musings of tracks like People of the Lie work brilliantly and keep a real sense of flow to proceedings. Over ten tracks the band vary the pace here and there keeping things fresh and interesting throughout. In the same way though, I do find ten tracks to be a bit of a stretch and do switch off towards the last throes of the album. A couple of tracks less and we'd have five stars up there folks.
Kreator’s fourth full-length starts off strong enough with the title track bashing and dashing its way across an opening four minutes plus of the kind of rabid thrash metal that I always associate with Kreator. This opening salvo sounds like the raw Kreator I fell in love with back with Pleasure to Kill and Endless Pain before it. The drums sound prominent yet not dominating and Mille’s vocals are full of that familiar demented edge. The guitars by way of contrast feel further back in the mix when the song is in full flow, yet their presence is still obvious and key to proceedings.
My previous review of this album had oddly seen me having troubles with the record when I wrote a piece for another site about all the Kreator full-lengths from the 80’s. I guess having done an end-to-end of all their albums in that decade in the space of a couple of days had left me a little tired towards the end and so I think I had written this album off certainly by way of comparison to the others. The fact is though that Extreme Aggression fucking rips. The standalone riffing of Love Us or Hate Us is testimony to just how full of attitude this record is; more than proving its worth at the second time of reviewing.
I understand that this album started to be recorded in a studio in Berlin, but producer Randy Burns had concerns over the set up of the studio and although they tried, mid-recording of Mille’s vocals one day, Burns pulled the plug, and the band took themselves over to the States a few months to re-record the album and do it better justice. One of the instruments that benefited here was the drums. Recorded in the same studio that saw Phil Collins deliver In The Air Tonight, Ventor’s skins sound fucking amazing on Extreme Aggression and as mentioned before this was not to the detriment of any other parts of the Kreator machine either.
With guitarist Jörg Tritze still not comfortable in the studio Mille was left to all guitar duties (as per the previous album) and the energy that flows from both the riffs and the sonic leads sounds like there were more than one of him the studio. His riffs being borderline as beastly as his vocals the two talents of Mille Petrozza combine well to deliver and exciting and memorable performance. The pace and vitriol of Betrayer is extraordinary as it toys and teases with the tempo like a video game character hitting power-ups at various points in the song and then settling back down momentarily before they hit another one.
Extreme Aggression is an incredibly tight thrash metal record that operates within boundaries set out from the very start. As such, its intensity does feel like it detracts from the overall quality of the album as it is a little too consistent for its own good and it kind of needs a brooding number dropped in around the halfway point to mix it up a little. However, for the die-hard Kreator fan there’s so much here to love that I am not sure many of them would care.
I can't quite think of any other band in the thrash metal genre that has the flow of Coroner? Certainly without any elements of groove metal being incorporated at least? The technical yet scathing delivery of Mental Vortex is both entertaining and innovative in equal measure. Progressive structures, catchy riffs, grim and gnarly vocals and deft musicianship all tick boxes on this release. Whist not my favourite Coroner release, Mental Vortex gets fair amount of air time on Radio Macabre over the course of a year.
I think its popularity with me is largely around the accessibility and energy of it. The riffs feel like they have real meaning and feel behind them, the leads exude passion and emotion and yet at the same time the whole thing just comes across as so sensible. There's an order to proceedings here that allows all individual elements to breathe without ever becoming showy or flashy. They even do a decent job of covering The Beatles I Want You (She's So Heavy). The restraint shown is down to the professionalism of the artists involved. That knowledge of when to let rip and when to hold back and nurture a track is rare and the maturity really shines through on this their fourth full length offering.
Prior to this the band had built a solid discography, developing their technical and memorable sound since the early eighties. By the time 1991 came around Mental Vortex realised all the experience and maturity you would expect in a band that has been releasing material for nearly a decade.
My only quirks with it are that it feels like a bit of slog to start, with both the first two tracks touching the seven minute mark I do drift a bit initially. Overall though it is a fine example of a band hitting their stride and the music showing this.
Let's start with some context here. By the time 1989 rolled around Sodom had been around for eight years. In that time they had already treated us to their particular brand of blackened speed metal on In The Sign of Evil before hitting a more conventional thrash metal sound on Obsessed By Cruelty and their second full-length Persecution Mania. With Expurse of Sodomy bridging the gap between the debut and the sophomore the band had already set themselves a reputation for delivering some ripping thrash metal with real menace and danger behind it. By the time we got to album number three things really had taken off for the band with a live album and video (remember those?) already released.
Agent Orange is the crowning glory of the bands (near) first decade of existence and for me their career as a whole. For all of its obvious maturity and great structure it retained all of the raw energy that we had enjoyed on previous releases and honed this into a more consistent and robust form. The opening and title track shows this perfectly, probably one of the best opening tracks I have ever heard, setting the tone and tempo for the majority of the album with a chopping riff from the word go. By the time we get to Remember the Fallen we get a cool groovy riff running through the track which breaks up the pace of the record really nicely at the halfway point.
Throughout the album the guitar sits front and centre, with Frank Blackfire's riffs at the forefront of the mix and his leads similarly high in the proceedings also. Angelripper's vocals sit perfectly just underneath the guitar in the mix with his bass audible enough to be a rumbling thunder that never quite cracks into a distraction to take away from anything else. Tracks like Magic Dragon are a great example of the tightness of the band with all parts clear in the sound but none of them dominating proceedings to negative effect, the bass fills the lower stratosphere perfectly allowing the vocals, drums and guitar to occupy the upper realms and sound fully supported.
I think there's an argument to say that Tom's vocals would always give the band a blackened edge even at this developed stage of their career but the sound overall here is absolute classic thrash as the tempo changes between cutting riffs and galloping rhythms to give a real sense of variety whilst maintaining that thrash metal authenticity. The performance of the sadly missed Chris Witchunter on the skins is superb, fully of energy and deft technique.
The punky vibes to Ausgebombt is catchy as fuck and on my CD version which is a reissue it is on CD2 twice as a live track and also as a studio German version so that track is never leaving my head in 2021 at least now. My version also has a cover of Tank's Don't Walk Away which is a superb edition to the album at the end and I would say improves it even more than I first thought possible.
This album for me is pivotal in Sodom's career, firstly because I don't believe they have ever come close to topping it in terms of quality, intensity and variety. Secondly the timing of this perfect record was so important for the growth of the band as I believe without Agent Orange Sodom would not be as important as they are today in the realms of their legendary status in thrash metal. Better Off Dead which is the album that followed this is a pale effort in comparison and I have little memory of Tapping The Vein be anywhere near this record. A simply essential thrash metal record that should be in every fan of the genres collection.
I have never understood the praise and lauding of this record. I will go on record at this early stage of my review as stating that I do not feel it a bad record, just a very overrated one. Four records into their career Megadeth had certainly progressed from their 1985 debut and five years showed well on their fourth outing, the album is very mature with well developed structures for sure. The main issue I have always had with Rust In Peace isn't actually much to do with the record itself. More the fact that the attention it receives bills a far more exceptional record than you actually get.
As a Megadeth record, in comparison with the rest of the their discography it is most certainly the band at their peak. With a superb combination of Mustaine, Ellefson, Menza and Friedman there was little excuse for the band to make Rust In Peace anything other than the jewel in their collection of gems over the years. As a unit they all do their share to make the likes of Hangar 18 an absolute triumph with the musicianship and talent being obvious throughout all five minutes and fifteen seconds of the track.
Unfortunately this is where the album peaks far too early. From track three onward we are firmly on a downward spiral with this record. Somehow managing to not lose any of the attack of the album the song quality deteriorates track by track, rendering the opening two tracks as distant memories of the real promise of this album. I repeat, it never gets terrible or even particularly bad though, it is just not worthy of the adoration and adulation afforded it in seemingly every review or conversation with peers about it.
There's all the consistency in terms of talent shining through for virtually all the album but it is not frequent enough to get the blood continuously pumping through these veins. There's also some very odd decisions been taken during the writing of tracks like Five Magics with its dreary and drab chorus and annoying spoken word repetitions of the sung vocals. Then there's the suspenseful build of the drama for Poison Was The Cure which ends up in a clumsy and clunky track with little in the way of direction or memorability.
I know I am in the minority here in not heaping shovel loads of admiration on this record but to my ears it is just an average thrash album with a couple of standout tracks.
1990 was a good year for metal. Perhaps one of the more memorable ones for my time listening to metal over the past 30 years. I spent hours as a teenager with this record and it remained my only exposure to Slayer for the best part of 3 years. As such, its an album that holds massive nostalgic value for me and whilst it will never rival South of Heaven or Reign In Blood as my overall favourites from the discography it does offer some quality tracks and is one of the few albums I can play through track by track in my head.
As has been alluded to in other reviews, this was probably the last great Slayer record. It it still had all the epic speed and intensity that had by now become standard offering for the group but it also offered real shows of maturity in terms of songwriting with a couple of tracks in particular standing out as picks from the record. To start with, opening track War Ensemble is a classic Slayer track, full of rampant urgency and pressing persistence. From the opening riff there's little time to draw breath and by the time it is over the doggedness of Blood Red continues the album's relentless opening salvo. To open an album with such a sense of cruciality is bold as there is no intro, no building of atmosphere, just straight up head off and shit down your neck intensity.
Things take a more atmospheric turn with the brilliant fifth track Dead Skin Mask, with it's spoken word dialogue uttered over a molesting and mauling riff. The child calling out towards the end of the track scared the living shite out of me as a teenager as the track played out a grisly homage to serial killer Ed Gein superbly. It remains one of my favourite Slayer tracks to this day for its fine mix of atmospheric horror and macabre storytelling.
Things get right back to the weapon's grade levels of intensity with the barnstorming Hallowed Point with riffs literally crashing in and taking the face off anyone in striking distance. For me though, after the catchy Skeletons of Society the album does go a little off the boil with Temptation feeling a tad clumsy in comparison to the rest of the tracks. After the evilness of Born of Fire we get to the crowning glory of the album as the title track makes for a momentous closing to the record with six and a half minutes of well constructed thrash metal that builds like a doom track to start before going off into a vast and familiar Slayer soundscape.
It really only is the small lull towards the end of the record that keeps that remaining half star off the rating here, otherwise this is a perfectly constructed and masterful thrash record that sometimes gets unnecessary bad press.
Like Seasons In The Abyss, the fourth full length from Sepultura offers a very nostalgic and important point in my metal evolution. As with my review for the aforementioned Slayer release, playing this whilst I type the review brings back many fond memories of thrashing around my bedroom like a fucking maniac, being interrupted every five minutes by my parents telling me to "turn that shit down". Similarly to Slayer's album one year before this, I don't think Arise was ever bettered and most certainly was the last great release by the band. I found follow up Chaos AD to be very patchy and by the time the "world music" celebration of Roots came alongI had detached altogether from the band.
The album's that preceded Arise made for an excellent golden run of constant improvement and development of the band's sound, from the raw and chaotic Morbid Visions to the more refined and robust Schizophrenia and Beneath the Remains there was an obvious enhancement to the playing skill and songwriting prowess of the band. With a stable line-up for some three studio albums (including this one) the band were very much hitting their stride by album number four.
The title track opens proceedings with it's mechanical clattering giving way to a barking riff and thundering drums, setting the scene perfectly for the cultivated thrash metal to come over the next eight tracks.. Again, this is another album I can comfortably play through in my head track by track as I have played it so many times. The current copy of the album I have is a remaster with the Orgasmatron cover and three bonus tracks but to be honest apart from the cover of the Motorhead track, the additions bring nothing to the table.
The album stalwarts are all that's required here as the legendary Dead Embryonic Cells kicks in with its powerful lyrics and timeless riffing before the anthemic Desperate Cry ups the memorability stakes even further . At this point the album starts to lose that half a star to keep it off full marks for me as I don't find Murder or Subtraction to be on the same par as the rest of the racks on the record. Thankfully the lull is only temporary and pretty soon things are back on course with the atmospheric build of Altered State creating drama and suspense that is fully realised the instance that huge fucking riff drops. The track fully embraces the free-flowing and well organised thrash metal that is so well established by now on the record. Despite the obvious accomplishment of the album there remains some primitive feel also which lurks beneath the surface all the time. It could be Igor's thundering and tribal drumming or Max's powerful and angry vocal style but you are never far away from the real murk of the band that they came from.
Track number seven utilises the same format as the prior one, Under Siege (Regnum Irae) starts with an atmospheric string pick before breaking into ethereal spoken word vocals. Again, it is not long before we are back in the kingdom of the faster tempo but the track does retain an excellent structure using all explored pacing well. The catchy and memorable Meaningless Movements sets up the album closer perfectly as Infected Voice brings things to a close with it's smashed cymbal sound to back up Max's gruff vocal delivery.
It does make itch a little bit that I can't give this five stars due to the importance of this record to me but the honest appraisal is that regardless of the missing half mark there's still so much to enjoy here and is an album that fully stands the test of time.
I am a big fan of what I term to be "golden runs" of albums. A series of albums by the same band that show continued development and progress on each release, often taking what starts as a very raw and primitive sound that can rely on little more than attitude to carry it through a debut release and then watch that grow into a more refined yet by no means less threatening prospect.
An example of such a band is Sepultura. Their releases from 1985 through 1991 are a consistent and incremental improvement with each release. From the crudity and vulgarity of Bestial Devastation to the rabid and and yet systematic assault of Arise, the band's sound, stature and reputation grew steadily. By the time 1989 rolled around they had a record deal, a fledgling Scott Burns sat in the producer's chair and a hastily written album to deliver.
They missed their first recording deadline for this record. They simply did not have enough material written by the time Roadrunner had signed off on the deal. Despite years of waiting for the big contract to become a reality, Sepultura weren't actually ready when the time came.
This could so easily have been a disaster. Running late on the timeline, with a producer who had never done the job solo before (let alone outside of Morrisound Studios back home in Florida) all with a language barrier to overcome to boot. The fact that anything got recorded at all is a real feat in itself.
Beneath The Remains sent Sepultura into the upper stratosphere of not just thrash metal but metal in general. Hailed as a rival to Reign In Blood at the time (it isn't to my ears btw) the raw brutality of the riffing style of the band came alive in the hands of a good producer in a decent studio. The fury and range of the vocal and rhythmic abilities of the Cavalera brothers were captured superbly and the excellence of their songwriting shone for the first time.
The essence of many albums on that land on "best of" lists is that they not only represent landmark releases for the year for me but also landmark releases for the bands also. Sepultura had one more trick up their sleeve when they released Arise some two years later, an album which was the very pinnacle of their powers. But Beneath The Remains wiped the floor with all other thrash releases in 1989 and was a release from a band truly hitting their stride.
Varg's last recording before imprisonment is an unrivalled success in an at times patchy and inconsistent discography (during and post-imprisonment most definitely). By no means an easy listen, the album is as vast as it is inaccessible, as raw as it is mechanised and as simplistic as it is emotionally intense. The album strikes a very dark chord in me that sort of lures me in and captivates my full attention from the off. There's no half measures here in my experience, I am either in it for the full duration of the record or I needn't bother. The almost trance-like state that it induces demands my whole attention, craves it almost.
The minimalism of the delivery is striking. The rawness of the sound, although abrasive, feels ritualistic and shrouded in some mythical practice that is centuries old. Oddly the overarching memory I have of Filosofem is that the record chimes to me, each chime being the point in time whereby I was dragged deeper into the bleak and denuded soundscape, stripped of all my wares and left to drown in the misery that floats thick in the air.
I find the mechanical character of the guitar equally as captivating. More immediate than the rest of the component parts around it, there's a perfect juxtapose to the raw energy it exudes that absorbs into the more ambient atmospheres that form around around it. The riffs drive the intensity of the album whilst the other instrumentation measures it and blends peril and outright threat into the mix to produce an almost anxiety inducing level of consistency. The repetition almost acts to soothe over time.
There's no low point for me on here, hence the full marks the record gets. As I mention earlier on in my review, it is not an album that makes for good background or driving music. You need a dark room and an open mind so you can just sit there and let it unfold the madness in you.
After the abomination that was Breeding the Spawn Suffocation took all the sick death metal that was smothered under Bagin's terrible production job and simply took it to a whole new level of brutality when it came to Pierced From Within. In all honesty I swing between this and Effigy of the Forgotten whenever I am asked to name my favourite Suffocation record as both are auditory assaults on the senses that leave scars and bruises aplenty. Having recently purchased this album on CD (vinyl shortages continue to force me into my second preferred choice of physical format) I found myself rediscovering the calculated and utterly devastating attack of these seven new and two re-recorded tracks from the Human Waste and Breeding the Spawn releases.
This album is a very tangible experience; certainly when you consider the utter revulsion that is intended to be delivered within this sub-genre of death metal. Despite not holding back with the horrific lyrical content and relentless delivery, Pierced from Within plays as one of the most accessible pieces of extreme music ever committed to tape. Driving forwards in the same lane that was wide enough to accommodate Cannibal Corpse and Cryptopsy, Suffocation stole a march on the competition with this release, matching pound for pound the extremity of either of the two aforementioned bands whilst also structuring all of it in a format that hits as a complete experience. Measuring some of Cryptopsy's technical prowess without straying too far down the intricate route, Suffocation simply deploy changeups and a variety of pacing to get their point across.
Those looping and blooping leads are perfectly placed in tracks, retaining memorability alongside the punishing tempos in which they appear. Mullen's vocals are still like he is regurgitating demons that he ate for breakfast but are somehow more focused and easier to trace. Meanwhile Bohn's drums are just insane and Richard's bass work is just so tight it defies belief at times. I do not say it very often but I cannot find fault with Pierced from Within. Yes I accept that it is a lot to take in and that this is not an album you will understand after just a couple of listens but that is the beauty of it. As an experience it rewards with every visit. Continuing the intensity that was born on Effigy the Forgotten was always going to be difficult but to be able to do that of the back of a complete turkey of a release in between is nothing short of phenomenal.
This record is an odd one for me. I enjoyed the debut by Suicidal Tendencies enough but Join The Army and How Will I Laugh... lit no fires for me and so when their 1990 offering came around I had little excitement at the prospect. What the band did have though was excitement in abundance and it came across well in the maniacal vocals of Mike Muir, the gritty chops of Rocky George, the rumbling four strings of Robert Trujillo and the strong stick performance of R.J.Herrera.
As with most of their releases there was a mix of comedic elements that sat atop of a very critical and dark commentary of society, politics and culture of the time and this tongue in cheek element did not sit well with everyone. I thought though that Lights..., balanced this the best out of all of their albums to that point. This felt modern, somehow refreshed and still stayed true to the core of the band's sound to breathe the necessary amount of familiarity for the fan base.
The hi-octane opening track and MTV favourite You Can't Bring Me Down started things off in the manner required, bursting with angst and energy. After the opening track the album does lose its way a little for me and only really picks up again from Give It Revolution onwards. Tracks 2 through 4 just stand out as being to dissimilar to the rest of the thrashy style to the record and therefore feel out of place. I am not sure of how they would fit in but surely the option to spread them out throughout the record would have made more sense, if not still run the risk of disrupting the overall flow more obviously.
Despite being something of a mixed bag the lyrical commentary on here remains smart and sarcastic in equal amounts and the band use the music well to enforce their dark comedy and make a real point without ever feeling like they are labouring it.
At whatever point in their discography you personally feel Metallica "lost it" (and I haven't got the time nor the inclination to debate it here), few would argue that during the 80s Metallica were still straight up thrash metal with no interest in commercial or mainstream success. Having delivered two hungry and energetic records already - with a marked improvement in sound and maturity already evident - their third effort was again a step up in the progress and development of the band. Whilst we had speed galore from the likes of Slayer, Metallica offered a more technical edge to their musicianship which although far from flawless was still skilled enough to stand out from the crowd.
It is hard to sit here decades after the event and not consider "Master Of Puppets" a landmark record in both Metallica's discography and thrash metal's evolution also. The hard hitting force of tracks like "Battery" and "Damage Inc" still hold punch today whilst the structure and composition on the title track and "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" in particular stand as tall today as they did nearly 30+ years ago.
Whilst I am never sure of the longevity of tracks like "Leper Messiah" and "Disposable Heroes" there is no denying that both still chug and chop like true thrash machines. I have always been of the opinion that you have to work your way through an entire album to truly appreciate the overall quality of all parts. Sometimes you have to sit through a couple of sub-par tracks (like the aforementioned) in order to be rewarded with the stellar output that lies beyond. The final two tracks on the album are varied in comparison to each other and offer the most memorable combination - that underpins the whole record - of solid composition and structure as well as heavy as hell thrash, delivered with a real sense of aggression and fury.
There's a mountain of reviews online that reason this to be the start of the decline of Metallica or "the last great" Metallica release. One review I read picks up on a "lack of thrash" on "Master.." which is ridiculous, if anything you won't find a better example of blending composition and thought with the immediacy and familiarity of riffs recognisable as being as 80s thrash as it gets.
"One man's insanity is another man's genius and from these altars of madness the heretic rejoices in things unseen"
According to Trey Azagthoth there was no more fitting a title for their debut album than Altars of Madness. Anyone who has heard it would be hard pushed to disagree. The classic line-up of the aforementioned Azagthoth, fellow guitarist Richard Brunelle (R.I.P 2019), drummer Pete Sandoval and bassist/vocalist David Vincent conjured a mind-bending and horrific opus back in 1989 that to this day retains every last drop of the nefarious intent behind its commital to tape.
Altars of Madness is a timeless release. It will still be as relevant in 60 years time as it is at just over 30 years. The true essence of death metal sits within the very grooves of the vinyl that sits on my shelf today. It is extreme, it is full of menace and shock and yet is skillfully balanced as a full-length. The intensity it generates never rages out of control, even in the more horrific moments, due in no small part to the proficiency of guitarists to cast sonic spells in the midst of tempestuous and violent tides of riffs that temper and add depth at the same time.
The riffs on opener Immortal Rites mine the very depths of the earth via the speakers from which their hellish sound emits. The sonics score and scorch the air around them as they fire as brief licks that stoke the flames.
By his own admission, Trey's non-conformity with certain keys or scales made this the music of pure chaos in the face of known foundational order. The album was his opportunity to challenge the norms he so despised and to commit this distaste to record regardless of the confusion that it spread as a result.
The performance of Pete Sandoval is a masterclass in blastbeats, a show stopping performance in hyperspeed rhythms and calculated auditory punishment. David Vincent meanwhile sits astride of the engine, reving it with his ghastly vocals, dropping in guttural frequency that could reverberate from the bowels of hades themselves.
Morbid Angel's debut is a complete experience. It is replete with the finest death metal you could hope to hear and is firmly sat in the top ten death metal albums of all time. For two albums, Morbid Angel were untouchable. Unique in their sound with that cavernous edge to the riffs that seemed to defy the laws of distance and space and utterly devoted to their task of delivering piercing and racking death metal.
After their debut, Michael Akerfeldt decided to pay more attention to Opeth and left the group, paving the way for Hypocrisy's Peter Tägtgren to join the band for their sophomore release. He did a good enough job for sure. Nightmares... is my preferred Bloodbath release and the vocals are particularly of note, blackened and scathing against the crunchy riffs and hacking chops of the guitars they mold perfectly around the instrumentation.
Sonically the record is superb to, Swanö, Renkse and Nyström weave evil tapestries from their nefarious finger tips giving a real impression of acute wickedness and impending hell. There are subtleties also that you might miss upon first listen. The haunting ring of the melodies that accompany the verses on Outnumbering the Day for example add a real edge to the track putting a harrowing sense of melancholy in place. Listen also to the duelling melancholy on Draped In Disease.
The drumming also deserves mention here. We all know Axenrot to be a talented artist and he continues to provide that assured yet integrated performance here, letting the drums breathe with the rest of the instruments whilst still doing a superb job of being a real lynch pin throughout. You can even hear the bass motoring long on most tracks (particularly on Year of the Cadaver Race). As predicted with a collection of such established musicians the whole album sounds like it is performed by a cohesive unit. Although arguably a substantial loss, Akerfeldt's absence largely goes unrecognised. Jens Bergen's production job is clear enough without damaging the intensity of the record. It feels raging and racing when it needs to yet atmospheric when required also.
My only criticism is that although it is only forty five minutes long, the record does feel a tad lengthy at twelve tracks and would benefit from a bit of a trim. Otherwise this nightmare is more than ample fresh flesh for the listener's consumption.
I have never liked "The Rack". There I said it. Thankfully, the Dutch death/doom mob got better immediately with "Last One On Earth" which still remains one of my favourite albums of all time to this day, and although I openly admit that they are guilty of a lack of consistency I found the last two Asphyx albums reasonably entertaining. "Death...The Brutal Way" and "Deathhammer" both receive regular plays still and the latter even made my "end of year list" for 2012.
"Incoming Death" picks up more or less where "Deathhammer" signed off. There's no major shift in sound or style to report and there's no major ball dropping to report (thankfully) either. The bulk of what I have to say about Asphyx's ninth full length is how familiar it is. Opening track "Candiru" blasts off proceedings as in the outer stratosphere before you can blink. Track three, "Wardroid" is where the more doom edge of proceedings comes into play with its rumbling bass and slow crunching riffs over Martin's familiar demented growl.
Only three tracks in though and the album starts to feel like a B-side to "Deathhammer" which is a shame since although I enjoyed the previous outing I do feel a bit more distance needs to be put between releases soundwise. That having been said the almost foot tapping chug of "The Feeder" does breathe some new life into the Asphyx cadaver. Also though I note a little bit of a sterile sound to some of the guitar work here which is a shame as the crunch of the Asphyx riffs have always been a big draw for me.
There's the dreaded "filler" on the album unfortunately. "It Came From The Skies" should have been left flying about up in the ether really and there's some evidence of Van Drunen struggling on "The Grand Denial" which is one of the slower tracks. I also get the sense of a hint of the timings on the riffs being slightly off on this track in places too.
Thankfully though there are positives to balance the record out. The title track is a raging fucking monster that turns the screw nicely as it progresses without ever losing impact and "Forerunners Of The Apocalypse" is a galloping romp of a track to follow up with. The final track too is a great closer, and whilst I don't enjoy "Incoming Death" as much as I did it's predecessor it is by no means a shit record. It could be planned better and perhaps a long look at the production technique wouldn't go amiss, but it is a perfectly acceptable piece of death/doom. I just expect more than merely "acceptable" from a band with the stature of Asphyx.
'Deathammer' starts with one of those annoyingly composed tracks that just commences without warning. No intro, no atmospheric fade up or distorted feedback, just literally straight 'Into The Timewastes'. Thankfully things get better on the second track with the title track doing a commendable rescue job after the poorly thought out opener. Unfortunately though I find quite early on in the record that it is very inconsistent. Whilst 'Deathhammer' does the job nicely, 'Minefield' and 'Of Days When Blades Turned Blunt' just sort of pass me by, leaving little in the way of memorability or benchmark quality in their wake.
Although 'Der Landser' stands out, this is more due to the conceptual nature of the songwriting as opposed to anything that sounds sticky enough to lodge any sure footing in my 30 metal years memory bank. Fast forward to track eight and I get the arrogant and brooding 'We Doom You To Death' with its recognisably doomy riff that carries the track through like some giant dark, moody wave. Similarly, the structure of closing track 'As The Magma Mammoth' rises holds up well as the final foray of the album that otherwise suffers badly from filler.
Van Drunen's vocal style is one of my favourite in metal, whether it is his work with Pestilence or Asphyx (not as hot on Hail of Bullets tbf). He holds up well on 'Deathhammer' but I don't believe any one part of the record could save the whole or make it a more memorable experience beyond just three or four tracks. Whilst solid enough, there's little in the way of standout stuff from Paul, Alwin or Stefan here to even hike my rating up just another half star.
I never got the love for Asphyx's prior outing to this record. The Rack as a stand alone record of its time was tame at best. I found it devoid of memorable riffs which for a death/doom record is no mean feat in my book. Thankfully the follow up release was chock full of huge riffs to blow the underwhelming debut out of the water in one fell swoop.
Things start off well enough with M.S. Bismarck but it's track number two that really gets the blood pumping. The main riff to The Krusher is - fittingly - crushing! It is so full of groove and bite that it is literally like having a set of teeth embedded in your throat whilst the beast that aforementioned fangs belong to shakes the very life out of your body. I could listen to this track over and over on repeat and never get bored of it. One of the most infectious riffs ever written in the history of metal for me.
Serenade in Lead continues proceedings in a more aggressive and calculated manner with it's full frontal assault and (more) memorable riffage before the title track settles down into the more familiar doomy edged death metal with its macabre tone and drawn out pace. The rest of the album continues in this pretty much similar pattern of confrontational lyrics coupled with heavy riffs and scathing delivery which is where the criticism comes in. For all its looming presence and vibrant riffage the memorability factor still isn't cranked up much higher than the debut. The difference being that this release has standout moments that have stuck with me since the first listen.
I am a massive fan of Van Drunen's style and his demented ramblings seem ultra-bonkers on here. He was absent for the next 25 years after this release and he's never really topped this vocal performance with Asphyx since he returned. For me Asphyx's sophomore release was their peak, with nothing coming close to the almost dirty and gritty guitar sound over the past 30+ years. Not perfect by a long chalk but the important parts are stuck in my head for the rest of my life.
I am going to immediately go out on a limb and openly admit to liking Will Duvall era AIC more than Layne Stayley era AIC. I absolutely acknowledge the moments of quality from the 90’s – there is undeniably a sense that when they got it right Stayley and co were quite a force after all. The problem with even Dirt is that it is not a complete album, like its predecessor it is just a selection of songs with a few top notch, high-quality tracks that survive as anthems to this day. There is no sense of an album of theirs from their first iteration as a group making all that much of a statement to me, more that they could just drop some great songs. I look at Facelift and immediately get lost after the first two tracks.
Although not perfect in terms of complete albums, Duvall era AIC have more consistency and as such TDPDH and Rainier Fog have been their crowning glories as a revamped group. Sticking with TDPDH, it is clear that the band were more settled when it came to writing this album in comparison to the promising yet lacking in finesse BGWTB. Duvall certainly has a unique voice and, on this record, it synchronises in harmony with Cantrell’s perfectly. Likewise, there is a greater sense of fit to the music as well. There are times when it is criminal how at ease with each other all the instruments sound on the record. Each one audible yet so well ordered and mixed in that there is a constant freedom to the sound.
As we have come to expect from previous albums Jerry Cantrell’s presence on TDPDH is obvious. As co-vocalist he is integral in giving that harmonious sound but when he goes solo (Hung on A Hook) his sultry tones add that grunge dimension to the sound. His guitar work is emotional yet controlled in the same regard. His sense of restraint to deliver a firm and yet heartfelt performance is a trait you would expect from a guitarist of his noted talent and experience. Cantrell knows how to write songs and he damn well knows how to add a genuine piece of himself into every last one of them also. His melodies singe the air as opposed to flashing bolts of lightning everywhere and leaving acrid smells in their wake.
The heaviness in TDPDH is tempered well even though it is an element that was present on BGWTB the band have captured some of that Angry Chair riff mentality and the catchiness of Man in the Box this time around. It is still an album that is steeped in rock as opposed to being just the dark emotional tirade of grunge but it has a positivity to it that suggests a band happy with their surroundings and at ease with their identity. There were snippets of this last time out (Last of My Kind) but here it just feels more organic like they have found their space and are throwing caution to the wind on where it means they fit in terms of pigeon-holes.
The follow up to this record, built firmly on the foundations laid down on this album, with Rainier Fog taking this catchy song writing and blending more seamlessly this harder edge and as such TDPDH here is a real game-changing record for AIC. It feels like they learned how to show all of their maturity and experience in a record but sound like they had an absolute blast whilst doing it.
I have to confess to liking Dirt a lot less nowadays than I did some thirty years ago when I first heard it. Back then it was a mainstay of my listening rotation as I was genuinely enamoured with the riffs of Jerry Cantrell and his bluesy lead work. The vibrant and electric sounds of the first two tracks on Dirt do still resonate with me to this day as a perfect start to an album as they typified the fact that not all grunge had to be gloomy and melancholic. There was an immediacy back then to the opening of this record that was not often repeatable on most other releases of the time. This spontaneous and perfectly tight sounding start is actually only rivalled upon reflection by the end of the record when the tumultuous Angry Chair, followed by the initially sultry and brooding Would? (that develops into a pounding album closer over its three-and-a-half-minute run time) close out the release brilliantly.
The problem I have with Dirt is what comes between these tracks as I now find the album to have lost a lot of the overall positivity that I held for it back in the day. Arguably the more grungey aspects of the album are the ones that I now dislike the most as with the exception of Down In A Hole and Rooster I no longer enjoy the rest of Dirt. Rain When I Die now sounds as whiny as the title suggests it should, only not in a cool reflective way like it used to and I just cannot stand Sickman anymore with its chaotic and too frantic structure. It is not rare for me to find an AIC album that is frontloaded (although rarer in fact to find any album that is front and rear-loaded to such a small extent) as Facelift takes a huge dip south after the opening two tracks, so there is a consistency to their early output for me. This is not to say that they are not still hugely important to the alternative metal movement - parking grunge references to one side for a moment - as AIC were really good at incorporating other influences into their vaguely metal-like foundations in order to offer something which was the core essence of alternative music.
I just do not feel that Dirt has aged that well for me, even acknowledging the nostalgia around the release and the importance of it. I will openly acknowledge that they have never topped this release in either era of the band but the longevity of it is questionable nowadays even though there is still enough here to keep this a four star rating.
It is no secret that I love me some Ulcerate. They enjoy that rarefied space in my estimation whereby I hold them in such high esteem that I would buy anything they put out without hearing it first. Like Gorguts and Immolation, Ulcerate have more than earned their props over the years and despite being the youngest of the three bands, possess a maturity that belies their years.
However, everybody must start somewhere and nobody in my top three has a flawless discography. Whilst Everything Is Fire is by no means perfect, it is an accomplished piece of technical/avant-garde death metal. We must consider that this was the New Zealander’s third record in seven years, with the previous two outings being good (if not particularly fully developed) foundation stones to build from. Listening to a bands discography in the wrong order is difficult though, especially when you consider their latter output – which I heard first - to be their best. In listening to pretty much anything before Vermis I am constantly having to remind myself that the best was yet to come and in doing so ensure that I am focused on rating output from before 2013 as being more formative releases.
It is fair to say that Everything is Fire exhibits all the technical capability we know and love from the band. At this stage in their career, they were by no means the finished article, yet at the same time they were pushing boundaries and trying new things. Whilst these do not always work (parts of the album do just sound like jumbled bashing and crashing) the overall structure is in place, albeit minus some of the finer detail I am more accustomed to with their later material.
Those trademark dissonant and mining riffs are fully present and accounted for. On a track like The Earth at Its Knees, this discordancy really thrives. My main criticism of the guitar is that it does feel removed at times from what is going on. Avant-garde tendencies aside (yes, I know this shit is not supposed to be linear) there is a real sense of disconnection in places between the guitar and the rhythm section. When they get it right (We Are Nil, Caecus, Tyranny and The Earth at Its Knees) they smash it out of the park. Saint Merat’s exquisite drumming shores up a lot of my dissatisfaction with Everything is Fire. At times on Stare Into Death and Be Still he seemed to cross into some other-worldly ability to concoct some of the most off-kilter yet utterly enthralling drum patterns. On this album he is by far the most advanced participant, with a skill set that perhaps is the reason why I get the sense that the rest of the group are playing catch-up. He is the engine behind all that happens here and in all honesty this album would just not work without him.
This album initially received an unfair three stars from me originally, which is particularly harsh as despite the above highlighted challenges this album is worthy of more. Revisiting it this time around has convinced me that there is enough identifiable quality here to link this to the wider discography that followed. Yes, I still believe they only hit their truly magical levels of cohesion on Vermis and have not looked back since, but I cannot think that many other bands in 2009 could deliver anything near the quality of Everything is Fire. I do not recall at this stage just how far they advanced themselves on Destroyers of All some two years on from this release (guess that is my next revisit that is required). If you are new to Ulcerate this would be the perfect place to start to truly chart the growth of one of metal’s finest avant-garde death metal outfits.
It is both physically and mentally draining to listen to Vermis. There's effort required here from me as a fan of death metal to simply plot what the fuck is going on across most of the nine tracks present here as they systematically pummel away at my ears with an absolute wall of noise whilst at the same time manage to send my brain into dizzying and spiralling cycles that disorientate in equal parts as they do entertain. As with anything that requires some work though the reward has to more than compensate for the time, patience and sheer concentration required to persevere with a complex (bordering on fathomless) musical entity and Vermis' trophy is the fact that there is literally years of content here for the listener to savour.
Unlocking the mastery behind the cacophonous sounds that the three piece invoke is were their fourth (are we really counting The Coming of Genocide?) album really starts to stand up as one of extreme metal's finest hours. The complexity behind the timings and the heaviness to the weight of the music are all evidence of really intelligent song writing and musicianship. Although most definitely a death metal record at it's core, this album explores the world of prog and doom to create what some scribes have described as "post-death metal". I am not as eager to place labels on things and put them into convenient sized boxes perhaps but where I do agree with other reviewers on the internet is that all of the elements described that make Ulcerate's sound on Vermis are perfectly balanced, directed with a precision that borders on engineering and formulate an output that is unique.
In the same year that this record was released, Gorguts dropped Colored Sands on the world and I spent weeks of my life toiling with both, eventually determining the Canadian's release to be superior. This was such a close run thing because whilst both exude an almost scientific mindset to their approach, Ulcerate's release needed multiple plays and with each one I had to dredge the tracks, listening carefully to try and follow the dissonance and map the progression throughout. By comparison, Colored Sands was more accessible (which is a fucking bold statement), more immediate and able to be managed in bite-sized chunks, whereas Vermis played best as a whole sitting, the component tracks of the nine on the album all intertwined somehow in building this twisted structure.
Although I think the mix is off for some parts of the record (the vocals and drums seem to suffer at the expenses of the riffs at times) the density of the record creates such a murky and immersive atmosphere that you can't help but feel lost (or trapped even?) in the experience of Vermis. There's a sense of real expansion behind the whole album, like the record is somehow creating enough space for you to process it in whilst actually just using it to crush you with more of the oppressive weight it generates. In building the record, drummer Jamie Saint Merat is integral in proceedings. He turns in a complex and yet natural shift on here and yet never dominates the proceedings, although let down by the mix on more than one occasion there's still no feel of him having to jostle for position like he can hold point perfectly and deliver what he needs to. By comparison Hoggard's monstrous and perplexing riffing drive most of the album from the front seat. His guitar pushes the aforementioned wall of noise on top of the listener and it is his work you must decipher first to truly understand the value of the treasures beneath. Kelland's vocals gasp, gurn and contort their way, serpentine-like through the album. Again, sometimes lost in the mix but consistently audible in the main to add menace to the atmospheres that are conjured.
It is impossible not to be impressed by Vermis. It is a triumph of both design and content only let down on attention to detail across the whole album in terms of the mix that keeps it at a 4.5 rating. What came after this release was a notch higher and suffered no such issues with the mixing desk but that's covered in another review.
When I was 14 I witnessed the video on Raw Power TV to the title track from Judas Priest's "Painkiller" album. I hadn't heard any Priest up until that stage despite me having a good selection of Iron Maiden and Saxon records under my belt by that age. "Painkiller" blew me the fuck away! I mean, what was not to love? Thunderous drums, a mix of gruff and shrill vocal antics and duelling lead guitars. I went straight out that afternoon and bought the album and blasted it for consecutive days for the next 3 months. All in all, not a bad gateway album to the band. The final point to make about "Painkiller" was that the record kicked the ass of most other releases in what was simply a stellar year for metal with "Rust in Peace", "Cowboys from Hell", "Danzig II: Lucifuge" and "Harmony Corruption" all dropping that same year, to mention but a few.
The real draw of "Painkiller" was the memorability of the experience, the intensity aside (which in itself was a fucking energising venture) one run through the record left seared scorch marks across your brain. For years after I could run through the entire album in my head note for note. "Firepower" is exactly the same. A mere 24 hours after it coming into my life and I can sing along with the lyrics, air guitar to near note perfection and bash my fingers bloody to the drums on my desktop. It's full of anthemic choruses and simple yet effective hooks that just pull you in.
Now, here's where the "Painkiller" comparisons stop. "Firepower" is not another "Painkiller" in terms of pace or intensity by any means (whoever expected as much is dreaming). It is however really strongly written and the arrangement is damn near perfect. Let's not forget that Priest formed in 1969. That's 49 years ago and they can still put out relevant and exciting metal almost without effort.
Try and not headbang to any of the opening six tracks, if you can achieve it you are almost certainly dead inside. Try not to make ridiculous gurning faces to any of the lead work on here and again if you succeed, check your pulse! Sad though it maybe that Glenn has confirmed his Parkinson's is now progressed enough to stop him from touring there is no doubt that he can exchange blows, pound for pound with Faulkner and barely break a sweat. Travis is as solid as ever behind the skins and although all my attention is on those fucking guitars he thumps along well enough to lynch the sound to a rhythmic core, as Hill rumbles along moulding his bass lines to the rest of the instrumentation nicely. Halford still sounds strong to my ears, not his old self by any means but he carries off "Firepower" brilliantly.
There's no point doing a track by track description here, if you have read the review to this point you'll get the idea. Criticisms? It is too long, by about 2 or maybe 3 tracks. However, you can easily suffer the dips in the quality here and there as you are rarely away from some truly great music. It does get a little samey at times too but that's forgivable to me as nobody is looking to reinvent any wheels here this may cause issue with the longevity of the record though for me. Right now though I love it, I fucking love it.
The unmistakable sound of Finnish Death Metal emanates from the speakers the instant you put Psychostasia on. That brutal approach coupled with the technical edge of death metal does emanates forth like a cosy darkness from the blackest of flames imaginable. The use of atmosphere is also notable here with a doomy edge to proceedings giving weight to the sound as well as a harrowing cut to the guitar work that adds to this dank hue perfectly.
Perhaps most notable for me are the vocals. They are a whispered menace throughout the record, a suffocating rasp that sounds other-worldly. They enhance the instruments by sitting well in the mix but also by their unique style. Likewise, the drums are key in the mix as they most definitely can be heard but they never dominate proceedings yet remain constantly in my awareness. The main driver here on the record however is the superb riffs on display. The scathing and melodic riff to The Book Of The Worm is one of the first pieces of Finnish Death Metal that I ever heard and the track remains one of my favourite tracks from the country to this day.
Inevitably, Adramelech drew comparisons with Demilich which I always felt was only half true a likeness. The technicality is there yes but the there's a lot more depth to Psychostasia and personally I visit this record a lot more than Nespithe. I feel that Adramelech more than stand on their own two feet and don't need the comparison to the mighty aforementioned band, this album was their debut full length after a couple of EPs at the start of the 90s and it already showed a penchant for songwriting and a maturity of playing that might not have been as avant-garde as the only full length from their compatriots some three years earlier, but it still remains a solid and often overlooked classic death metal record.