Daniel's Forum Replies

I think the driving, double-time bass work of Roger Glover & the general intensity in the production & performances gives these songs the illusion of being faster than they are. Neither track are actually that fast, certainly not verging on speed metal tempos (i.e. "Speed King" is only 100 bpm & "Flight of the Rat" is around 115 bpm). The lack of tremolo-picked guitar work & double-kick drumming is also a notable omission from the speed metal kit bag here. The former is absolutely essential in speed metal in my opinion & wouldn't eventuate until the back half of the decade.

Heaviness is certainly a common element of metal but it’s not exclusive to metal. Rock songs can be heavy too (as your “Speed King” example proves) while metal tracks can be comparatively not as heavy. The defining characteristics of metal need to be there for it to be metal though & there’s nothing in “Flight of the Rat” that falls outside of the scope of hard rock in my opinion. I find it to be about as heavy as a wet kiss from mum too.

Let’s not go down the Motorhead path or we’ll have a similar conundrum on our hands. I don’t think we’re gonna agree here so let’s move on.

But that’s a defining characteristic of European power metal Rex. Are you claiming this as power metal? 

If we’re gonna class a track like this one as metal then you might as well ditch the concept of hard rock altogether because it’s about as pure an example of hard rock as you’re gonna find really.

"Flight of the Rat" has nothing to do with metal whatsoever in my opinion. It's about as hard rock as hard rock gets with those strummy open-string chords, the jovial atmosphere & a bouncy rock beat.

A few from the last week:

Ry Cooder - "Chicken Skin Music" (1976)

C.W. Stoneking - "Jungle Blues" (2008)

Bonnie Raitt - "Bonnie Raitt" (1971)

Right, let's move on to "Flight of the Rat" then. Metal or not?

I'd find it hard to split Deftones' "Around Ther Fur" & Linkin Park's "Meteora" for my nu metal fave.

Note: I don't actually consider "Around The Fur" to be a nu metal record but that seems to be the common consensus these days

You're right Andi. That's certainly an interesting position. I'm across the entire Rainbow discography & would suggest that there isn't more than a couple of tracks that would qualify as metal across the whole lot to be honest.

"Sad Wings of Destiny" certainly isn't a total metalfest. It's still a band in transition but I've always thought there was comfortably enough metal to qualify. Perhaps I'll get a chance to review that position a little later in this exercise.

Darkthrone - "Cromlech" demo (1989)

Ok, so Darkthrone's final demo tape saw them finally coming of age as they approached the recording of the "Soulside Journey". The production & musicianship is much stronger & the material possesses that gloomy atmosphere that their early death metal material is known for. I could have done without the live version of "Iconoclasm Sweeps Cappadocia" that's tacked onto the end but the other three tracks are all enjoyable, particularly the very solid instrumental "Accumulation of Generalization" which was arguably the best thing they'd done to the time.

3.5/5

Sarcófago - "Die... Hard!!!" (2015)

The underground tape trading scene of the early-to-mid 1990’s was very kind to me. The feeling of excitement I’d have every time a package of new music would arrive from some foreign part of the world is something that the youth of today probably can’t understand given the ready access everyone has to literally every piece of music ever recorded but it was seriously addictive for a young, fresh-faced me who was still relatively new to this whole extreme metal thing. A South American kid I was trading with used to keep me up to speed with all of the cool underground stuff that his continent had to offer & I'd return the favour with the better Aussie bands like diSEMBOWELMENT, Armoured Angel & Sadistik Exekution. One particular package I received from this trader included the 1987 “INRI” debut album from Brazilian black/thrash metal legends Sarcófago, a band that I’d heard a little bit about but had never had the pleasure of experiencing. Upon listening to it though, I discovered that these South Americans knew a thing or two about raw extremity, a gift that I valued very highly at the time & still do. I’d subsequently request copies of any other Sarcófago releases I could get my hands on, including their three seminal mid-80’s demo tapes.

You may have noticed that I’ve recently been reliving those times by revisiting many of the releases I flogged in my early-to-mid teenage years, an exercise that’s ended up being much more significant than initially I thought it might be. As a part of that I’ve been spinning quite a number of demo-quality releases for the first time in many decades too which has brought back some quite vivid memories. When I went to look for the old Sarcófago material I found that there was a 2015 compilation album called “Die… Hard!!!” which apparently brings together all of the band’s demos & unreleased material on the one disk which was handy. This seemed to serve my purpose brilliantly so I’ve been giving the compilation a fair bit of time over the last few days. The results have been… well…. pretty mixed though if I’m being honest.

“Die… Hard!!!” kicks off with three rounds of the same four song run, only they’ve been recorded in different sessions. Tracks one to eight are previously unreleased recordings from 1985 while tracks nine through twelve are taken from the 1986 “Satanic Lust” demo. Strangely, the unreleased & apparently much earlier versions are significantly better than those released on the demo which was admittedly always the one that I found to be the weakest of the three Sarcófago tapes. “Satanic Lust” is marred by an awful production which includes a diabolically poor drum sound which goes a long way to ruining the faster material like “Satanas” & the heavily Hellhammer influenced “Third Slaughter”. The slower “Nightmare” is left largely unharmed but it was enough to spoil the cassette for me so I appreciated the alternate versions. I’d just question the need to have TWO of them because I really don’t think too many people will want to sit through three versions of the same thing.

1987’s “Christ’s Death” demo (the third & last of the three) fares much better, championing a sound that I’ve always thought was close enough to genuine war metal, only a good two years before Blasphemy’s seminal “Blood Upon The Altar” demo first saw the light of day. This stuff would have to have been the most brutal & evil material to ever see the light of day at the time, out-savaging even Bathory’s highly influential “Under The Sign Of The Black Mark” album from the same year. It still sounds pretty good too just quietly, although admittedly not essential. That just leaves Sarcófago’s first demo “The Black Vomit” (my personal favourite) then, doesn’t it? Soooo…. uuuummm… where is it then? I can’t seem to find it. Apparently it hasn’t been included for one reason or another which is a little frustrating. Perhaps due to the poor sound quality of the recordings? I dunno but it’s a strange omission, especially given that the remainder of “Die… Hard!!!” is made up of inessential rehearsal recordings & unreleased outtakes, most of which don’t exactly set the world on fire with a previously unreleased version of “Black Vomit” from the sessions for the “Warfare Noise I” compilation being the best of them.

If you give “Die… Hard!!!” some dedicated attention then you’ll no doubt come to the realization that Sarcófago have never gotten the full credit they were due. Some of this stuff sits amongst the earliest examples of authentic black metal material ever recorded & it still stands up today in terms of intensity. It’s just that you have to sit through a fair bit of inconsistency to reach the gold in his 20-song tracklisting, particularly towards the back end with some of the more recent tracks like the awful “Alcoholic Coma” & the flat “Secrets of a Window” being closer to traditional thrash than black metal. If you’re a total Sarcófago tragic or an obsessive fan of bands like Vulcano, Blasphemy & early Sepultura then I probably don’t need to tell you that “Die… Hard!!!” is a bit of a no-brainer but I can’t see the necessity for more casual listener. I mean, do I really need a drum machine-driven version of “Satanic Lust” in my life when the original wasn’t that great to begin with? I’d suggest that the better value option might be to hunt down the three demo tapes on YouTube actually, especially considering that the best of them isn’t even included on this compilation.

3/5

I'm not hearing any metal in "Child in Time". It's predominantly a progressive rock track with some building hard rock crescendos. The stripped back proggy sections are similar to Pink Floyd's more atmospheric moments while the guitar solo section in the middle is nothing more than a take on the bluesy Status Quo rock 'n' roll shuffle. I think a dual prog rock/hard rock tag is appropriate here. 

And yes, it's by far my favourite track on the album & possibly of Deep Purple's career.

Darkthrone - "Thulcandra" demo (1989)

The Norwegian legends started to develop the death metal sound that they'd champion on their debut album here with their third demo tape. It's still in its infancy though so still isn't well executed enough to be particularly interesting. Still, it was their most promising effort to the time.

3/5

Excellent Shezma. I've added you to the roster below. The highlighted people are the ones who are currently up to nominate the November feature releases so your first allocation is for The Guardians next month. I'll remind you by private message late in November if I don't hear from you prior. Feel free to contribute to as many of as few of each month's feature release discussions as you'd like.

THE FALLEN: Morpheus Kitami, Ben, Daniel, Sonny

THE GATEWAY: Andi, Saxy

THE GUARDIANS: Xephyr, Shezma, Morpheus Kitami

THE HORDE: Sonny, Daniel, Ben

THE INFINITE: Xephyr, Saxy, Shezma, Andi

THE NORTH: Ben, Sonny, Daniel, Shezma, Xephyr

THE PIT: Morpheus Kitami, Sonny, Daniel, Ben

THE REVOLUTION: Daniel, Andi

THE SPHERE: Andi, Daniel

How about "Child in Time" guys? Metal or not?

I actually love "Rocka Rolla" & think it's massively underrated. In fact, I'd take it over some of Judas Priest's most widely celebrated albums if I'm being honest. Interestingly, I've scored it the same as you have though Andi.

Darkthrone - "A New Dimension" demo (1988)

Darkthrone's second demo tape was a two-track affair that included a short, atmospheric & fairly effective dark ambient intro piece followed by a single nine-minute instrumental called "Snowfall". It was a pretty ambitious undertaking & I'm not sure that it makes all that much structural sense to be honest. I'd suggest that "Snowfall" is more of a thrash metal track than anything else & it's got very little to do with the doom/death of their "Land of Frost" demo from earlier in 1988. The production & musicianship is significantly better though. I slightly prefer "Land of Frost" over "A New Dimension" but there's very little in it & neither are worthy of your hard-earned time.

2.5/5

You’ve clearly never pulled a cone to “Planet Caravan” Andi. That track is life-changing & one of the highlights for mine.

Unlike "Speed King" which simply amped hard rock riffs up to eleven, "Bloodsucker" is built on a riff that I'd describe as being the prototype for heavy metal & was enormously influential on bands like Judas Priest. In fact, check out the main riff from Priest's "Victim of Changes" which would appear to simply be a variation on the "Bloodsucker" riff. The rest of this track sits more in the hard rock space but that main riff is the basis for the song so I'm happy for "Bloodsucker" to qualify as heavy metal.

Darkthrone - "Land of Frost" demo (1988)

I picked up all four of Darkthrone's demo tapes very early on in my tape trading days back in the early 1990's. This one was their first & it shows in the dodgy performances as everything is pretty loose. "Land of Frost" is generally regarded as being death metal but there's easily as much doom metal as there is death metal here with the slower stuff being some of the stronger parts of the cassette. Some people seem to have a problem with Fenriz' psychotic vocal delivery which is smothered in delay but I don't mind it at all. There's enough decent material for this to be a much better demo actually. It just needed a bit of quality control & some more developed chops.

2.5/5

Ok, let's move on to "Bloodsucker" then, shall we?

On the contrary, that 40% rule is the rule I have afforded to literally every metal album on the site.

Sarcófago - "Christ's Death" demo (1987)

The Brazilian extreme metal legends pick things back up after the disappointing "Satanic Lust" demo from earlier that year with a release that was more savage than anything we'd heard from them previously. In fact, I'd argue that this demo represents perhaps the earliest example of genuine war metal. The intensity blew my socks off back in the very early 1990's & it's still something to behold even today. I still prefer Sarcófago's first demo "The Black Vomit" overall though.

3.5/5

Sarcófago - "Satanic Lust" demo (1987)

The Brazilians second demo tape was a couple of steps down from the first in my opinion, mainly because it was ruined by a pretty awful production job that featured a piss-weak drum sound. It was a bit of a shame as there's a fair amount of potential in the song-writing (as seen in the alternate versions on the "Die... Hard" compilation). Once again, this demo is predominantly black metal with a little blackened thrash appearing on the heavily Hellhammer influenced final track "Third Slaughter".

3/5

Oh really? Great minds think alike. I shall make a point of reading your review today.

Sarcófago - "The Black Vomit" demo (1986)

I got pretty heavily into Brazilian extreme metal legends Sarcófago very early on in my early 1990's tape trading days which led me to securing all of their demo tapes from a South American trader. This one is both the earliest & the most obscure one but I like it the most of the three nonetheless. The intro track "Recrucify" is devastatingly dark & wonderfully effective while both of the proper tracks "The Black Vomit" & "Satanas" are pretty decent too. This demo is pure black metal to my ears & is miles better than the greatly overhyped Mayhem material from the same year. It's well worth checking out if you're into super-underground, lo-fi demo stuff.

4/5

Obituary - "Slowly We Rot" (1989)

Florida death metal legends Obituary were a huge part of my life in the early 1990’s. I first discovered them while listening to a late-night underground metal radio program shortly after the release of their 1989 debut album “Slowly We Rot” & immediately became infatuated with the vocals of the iconic John Tardy who has been my favourite death metal front man ever since. It was the title track from the album that would be my initial taste & my death metal band Neuropath would cover that song in a live environment for several years during the mid-90’s. 1990’s “Cause of Death” sophomore album would absolutely blow my socks off & would be following up by the very strong “The End Complete” album in 1992, both of which kinda relegated “Slowly We Rot” to entrée status & I feel that I’ve often overlooked it since but I still remember my first impressions & how often I would since Obituary’s debut album back in the day so it’s about time I put my money where my mouth is by formalizing a firm position.

Obituary had been around for a good half decade by the time “Slowly We Rot” was recorded but not always under the same moniker. They began life as Executioner back in 1984, a thrash metal band whose “Metal Up Your Ass” 7” single floated by without much fanfare. They’d adjust their name to Xecutioner in 1986 due to potential legal issues with another band & released their 1986 & 1987 demo tapes under that name. These cassettes would clearly show that the boys had transitioned over to a death metal sound with the name change & the 1987 tape would very clearly showcase the classic Obituary sound, even if it was nothing more than a cheap rehearsal recording. The band would sign with Dutch label Roadracer Records for their debut album & would record it with a young producer by the name of Scott Burns at the now legendary Morrisound Studios in their home town of Florida. Burns was fresh out of making his first genuine production statement with Sepultura & their classic third album “Beneath The Remains” so it was great timing for Obituary who would change their name one last time just prior to the release of the album.

“Slowly We Rot” sounds amazingly tight & heavy for a first up effort. The rhythm guitar tone of Trevor Peres (Meathook Seed) & Allen West (Massacre/Six Feet Under) is thick & deathly, everything you could want from an old-school death metal record really. This is further enhanced by a really tight & well thought-out contribution from the rhythm section of future Nocturnus bassist Daniel Tucker & Meathook Seed drummer Donald Tardy. While West’s lead guitar work is certainly not up to the standard of James Murphy who would bring a new dimension to the band for the follow-up record, he hasn’t completely given up to pure whammy-bar worship just yet so he’s effective enough. The real hero here though is clearly front man John Tardy who contributes a genuinely inhuman & scary sound that no man alive has yet been able to match. He’s simply untouchable & Obituary wouldn’t be the band they are without him. He & (to a lesser extent) Peres are the clear masterminds behind this legend of the Florida death metal scene.

Obituary’s sound is comprised of a few different elements from an instrumental point of view. Firstly, there’s a clear Slayer influence in the faster material which is often backed by a fairly punky beat. I find this material to be the least interesting. Then we have a mid-paced Celtic Frost influence that keeps things very simple yet executes with crushing efficiency. And finally you’ll find smatterings of genuine doom metal that are the clear highlights of the album in my opinion. It would seem that the band felt very similarly because they’d wind the tempo down far more regularly on “Cause of Death” & would reap the rewards for doing so too. The other thing they’d do much better on that album is provide better structure in their song-writing. On “Slowly We Rot” we find them pasting together some fairly disparate ideas in a haphazard fashion, often finishing songs suddenly & well before they’ve fully explored their potential.

While the tracklisting is very consistent with no week tracks included amongst the thirteen songs on offer, “Slowly We Rot” definitely offers a little variation in quality. If I’m being honest I’d suggest that the infamous title track is actually the one that appeals to me the least along with “Gates of Hell” & Words of Evil”. The real classics here are “Godly Beings”, “Suffocation”, “Bloodsoaked” & my personal favourite “Intoxicated”. It’s a really solid late 80’s death metal record in it’s own right but I do still think that it looks & feels a little like a entrée to the “Cause of Death” main course. That may have caused me to unfairly overlook it over the years but I’ve never forgotten it’s importance or the impact it had on me as a youngster. “Slowly We Rot” should be essential listening for fans of bands like Autopsy, Jungle Rot & Asphyx.

4/5

It's a fairly noisy, raucous & electric example of hard rock in my opinion. I'm not denying the intensity but there aren't any of metal's calling cards on display here as far as I can see. That intro is pure rock 'n' roll debauchery, not too dissimilar to what Jimi Hendrix had been doing a few years previous. The riffs are pure open-string hard rock & lack the chug & the more rhythmic palm-muting technique that most heavy metal riffs are generally built on & the organ only further accentuates that. I'd suggest that Gillan's wail is pretty damn close to rebellious rock 'n' roll singers like Little Richard more than anything else. When it comes down to it, "Speed King" gets me tapping my foot rather than banging my head which is (as a gross generalization) what differentiates hard rock from metal.

Now that we seem to have some consensus on "Black Sabbath" as the first genuine metal release, let's move on to Deep Purple's "Deep Purple In Rock" album which was released just three months later & a couple of you are claiming to be a metal release. It's been a while since I listened to it so I'm gonna keep an open mind & judge each track on its merit.

Let's start with opener "Speed King":

This exercise was interesting, because were this any other band, I'd think right now we'd say this is hard rock. This album, outside of the first song, really dances around genre. But, because it's Black Sabbath, we're trying to find ways to justify it back onto metal. (not accusing anyone of anything I'm not doing myself)

I actually remained completely impartial throughout the exercise & tagged each song as I would a release from an anonymous modern-day band. I have no skin in the game as such as there are several other Black Sabbath releases that I don't believe to qualify as metal (see "Technical Ecstasy", "Never Say Die!" & "Seventh Star"). I was just looking for a unanimous site position on the matter so that everyone was comfortable with the direction.

the problem here is that only a quarter of the songs would be stoner metal. 

I may only have tagged two tracks as stoner metal but that's only a technicality really. My results indicated that I needed to award the album a metal tag & the one that I feel is most capable of encompassing subgenres like stoner rock, heavy psych & blues rock is stoner metal so I selected it as much on the other tracks as I did on the two that I actually tagged as stoner metal. Personally, I think a generic "metal" tag is a bit of a cop-out that serves no real purpose. It doesn't work at Metal Academy given the clan configurations either. It's also worth noting that there are no tags from The Guardians in my chart & three tags from The Fallen.

While we wait to see if there's any remaining input from anyone prior to us starting to take a look at Deep Purple's "In Rock" album tomorrow morning, here's my final track-by-track position on "Black Sabbath":

The combined run time of the three tracks that I've tagged as being metal amounts to exactly 40% of the total album duration which is within the qualification parameters set at the start of this exercise. Therefore, I'm comfortable that "Black Sabbath" is a legitimate metal release, the very first one in fact.

While it's really great to be able to visually justify my long-time feelings on the matter, the REALLY interesting thing about the above chart can be found in the Subgenre column. As most of you will no doubt be aware, "Black Sabbath" is generally tagged as a Heavy Metal release & always has been but I haven't tagged a single track as Heavy Metal. Right or wrong, this is in line with some niggling subconscious feelings I've held for several years now, ever since I started putting together the monthly playlists for The Guardians actually. You see, whenever I would select a track from "Black Sabbath" for inclusion in the playlist it would sound very different to the remainder of the tracklisting which left me wondering if the Heavy Metal tag was really the most accurate description of the album by the modern understanding of the genre definitions. Using the above chart as a guide, I would actually have to suggest that the best fit would be a combination of Blues Rock & Stoner Metal. To support that position, the definition of Stoner Metal is as follows: "a subgenre of Metal music that combines elements of Doom Metal with elements of Psychedelic Rock and Blues Rock to create a melodic yet heavy sound". That description sounds very close to what I've listed above & have heard while reviewing the album to be honest. It just feels more in line with Black Sabbath's early musical direction than the definition of Heavy Metal i.e. "a heavier outgrowth of Hard Rock featuring greater distortion and intensity along with lesser Blues influences".

If we decided to make a change from the long-time consensus (which would need two successful Hall of Judgement entries just quietly), it would not only require a clan change for the album but would indirectly require an acceptance that we should tag releases with the most relevant subgenre as per the current day meaning of the terms rather than simply tagging releases with whatever it is they may have been tagged as many decades ago. I for one would be happy with that approach because, by its very definition, genre-tagging is about bringing people's attention to music that they're likely to enjoy. So, if basically every Stoner Metal band known to man is simply emulating "Black Sabbath" then it only makes sense that "Black Sabbath" is also tagged as Stoner Metal, regardless of whether that term existed back at the time of release. I'm also of the strong opinion that Metal Academy should run its own race rather than being dictated to by the masses who may be completely off the mark. Anyway... that's just my two cents. Feel free to shoot my position down in flames if you disagree. I just thought it was an interesting discussion point. Thoughts?

I agree that "Wicked World" is a bit borderline. I've got it as sitting between stoner rock & stoner metal but it certainly leans more to the rock side of the equation. The verse riff is so doomy & utilizes one of the defining tools in the metal arsenal in fast, palm-muted down-strokes, very similar to those used in the title-track from "Paranoid" actually. Given that this riff is so instrumental in how the track plays out I'm happy to suggest that "Wicked World" should qualify as metal.

Let's just get through "Wicked World" before jumping to any conclusions. The US version of the album was also released in 1970 & could well have been simultaneously so I don't think it's fair to say that the English version is the original & most definitive one. It depended on where you lived at the time. Plus, we still have one or two tracks where we didn't have a unanimous position & I'd like to seek further input from one of two other members before reaching a final outcome.

Anyway.... "Wicked World" then. Metal or not?

Mayhem - "Pure Fucking Armageddon" demo (1986)

I've never really enjoyed 80's Mayhem to tell you the truth & their ultra-primitive first up effort is a prime example of why as it really offers very little in the way of musical value. The awful attempt at recording vocals through the "studio" side is the most significant stumbling block for me with the instrumental versions of the same songs on the unmixed side being far more palatable. The sound quality in general is quite abysmal though. Euronymous' guitar tone is quite possibly the filthiest sound ever created by man & must have hit anyone within a few miles like an out-of-control freight train. This is blackened thrash metal in its rawest & most visceral form. It's just a pity that it's so hard to listen to. I'm afraid time hasn't done much to change my initial poor impressions from back in my tape trading days. For fans of Tormentor, Hellhammer & Sarcofago.

2/5

Xecutioner - "1987 Demo" (1987)

The final Obituary demo offers far less in the way of sound quality than the previous two as, unlike "Metal Up Your Ass" & "1986 Demo", it wasn't recorded in a studio. Instead, this is simply a cheap rehearsal recording with a production quality that only an old tape trader like myself could likely appreciate. In saying that though, I get the most enjoyment out of this one & listened to it far more than the other two back in the day. Unlike those two, this recording clearly shows the classic Obituary sound in its fully realized state with all three tracks being a combination of material that would eventually appear on the "Slowly We Rot" album two years later. Ignore the dodgy track titles because they mean absolutely nothing. John Tardy's vocals are far more extreme than they were on the 1986 demo & are probably a little screamier than his monstrous signature sound. It's no wonder Obituary sounded so tight on their first record when you consider that they were perfecting the songs for literally years though. I wouldn't have signed them on the evidence presented on those first two recordings but I certainly would have after hearing this one, despite the awful sound quality.

3.5/5

Note: That's not the cover art for this release. I couldn't find any online.

I hear precisely zero metal in "Warning". It's by far the most obviously blues rock track on the album in my opinion, only veering off a bit towards Led Zeppelin style hard rock right at the end.

I've been thinking about it & I think we should go with the current Spotify version of the album which simply tacks "Wicked World" on the end of the original English version. Therefore, we'll take a look at "Wicked World" tomorrow.

Executioner - "Metal Up Your Ass" 7" single (1985)

The earliest studio recordings from Obituary which was another one that I picked up during my early tape trading days. The sound quality is pretty good since it was recorded at the legendary Morrisound Studios in Tampa. They were still a thrash metal band at this point & were heavily influenced by local Florida heroes Nasty Savage. John Tardy still had a hardcore-ish thrash delivery too. The title track is quite enjoyable in a naive, endearing way. The faster & more intense "Syco-Pathic Mind" less so.

3/5

How about "Warning" then? Blues rock? Heavy metal? Hard rock? Heavy psych?

Xecutioner - "Demo 1986" (1986)

One of the early Obituary demos that I picked up through my early tape trading dealings. It only includes two tracks but is only really interesting because of an early version of "Find The Arise" which would eventually end up on 1990's "Cause of Death" album, admittedly in a vastly superior format. The sound quality is really very good for the time.

3/5

Here's my review:

It’s really interesting how a small scene that contains comparitively few active contributors can create such a buzz around the globe but the Chilean thrash metal scene seems to have overachieved significantly in this space in recent years with the likes of Demoniac, Critical Defiance & Trastorned all flying the Chilean flag on the international stage. Peñaflor four-piece Hellish are another one to add to that list although they’ve been flying a little further under the radar than the artists I just mentioned. My only previous encounter with them came off the back of their 2018 sophomore album “The Spectre of Lonely Souls” which I found to be really enjoyable at the time so I’ve always intended on giving Hellish a little more attention but have never quite gotten around to it until now. I hadn’t even noticed that they’d released a follow-up album until Ben nominated 2022’s “The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents” as this month’s The Pit feature release to be perfectly honest but I think it’s fair to say that I was damn well up for it leading into my initial listen.

Hellish had undergone a couple of significant changes since “The Spectre of Lonely Souls”. Firstly, they’d attracted the interest of Germany’s Dying Victims Productions who had taken the baton from American label Unspeakable Axe who had been responsible for both of Hellish’s previous albums. Bass-playing front man Necromancer had also moved on after 2020’s “The Rising of Darkness” split E.P. with fellow Chilean thrashers Mayhemic & been replaced with the relatively unknown Cristopher Aravena. I’ve gotta be honest, Aravena’s vocals sound so similar to Necromancer’s that I would never have noticed if I hadn’t read about the change online. Drummer Cristian Leon (interestingly a former guitarist of Chilean thrashers Ripper) has once again overseen the recording process, this time moving the sessions outside of Hellish’s home country to Romaphonic Estudios in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The last two records sound remarkably different from a production perspective with “The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents” seeing Hellish opting for more of a blackened sound which contains much more high-end than the bassier tone they championed on “The Spectre of Lonely Souls”. The bass work of Aravena stands out very obviously in the mix as a result which highlights his pretty significant talent on his chosen instrument.

The Hellish sound is very much a summary of the underground extreme metal scene of the 1980’s as it doesn’t stick with any one genre, instead harnessing several influences to create a sound that sits between all of them. Despite the blackened vocals & production, “The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents” definitely feels most like a thrash metal release though. The list of influences includes the speed metal-infused thrash of Destruction, the early death metal of Possessed & the black metal edge of fellow South Americans Sarcofago if I’m not mistaken. It’s interesting that a number of the Chilean bands seem to display similar influences to those although it’s perhaps not all that surprising given the cross-pollination of band members. Guitarist Javier Salgado is a prime example of that given that he’s a former Critical Defiance member & the architect behind Parkcrest. It’s also interesting that both Parkcrest & Hellish apparently split up earlier this year. I’m not sure why that happened but Salgado was in both bands & the announcements were in very close proximity to each other so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

“The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents” sports an extremely consistent tracklisting with no real blemishes. In fact, it’s almost a perfect example of a release that completely flatlines in terms of quality with every track offering roughly the same level of appeal. Unfortunately for Hellish, that level isn’t quite high enough to fully capture me even though I find myself enjoying all eight tracks to a similar degree. It’s probably more of a stylistic thing for me. I’m not all that big on some of the melodic ideas which draw on similar speed metal riff structures to the first couple of Destruction releases. The bass lines also play more of a melodic role than I’d like which lightens up the mood a touch & reminds me a little bit of Absu. I do really enjoy the more aggressive vocal contributions though, particularly when Aravena starts to sounds truly demonic. You’ll definitely pick up a number of palm-muted, tremolo-picked death metal riffs across the tracklisting which I really enjoy too.

It's a little surprising to see how minimal an impact “The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents” has made thus far to be honest as it’s certainly worth a few listens if you’re a fan of bands like fellow Chileans Invincible Force, Norway’s Inculter or Sweden’s Antichrist. In fact, I can see it offering plenty of appeal for those with a penchant for the more underground side of extreme metal in general actually. It’s just lacking those few genuine highlight tracks to break up an otherwise consistently “pleasant” blackened thrash record. I can’t see too many people being critical of an album like this one but, on the other hand, I’m not sure it’ll be making too many top ten lists either.

3.5/5

I agree that it's not consistently metal enough to qualify. It sports a pretty jerky song structure that doesn't flow very well, instead coming across like a number of disparate ideas having been pasted together in haphazard fashion. It kinda plays out like this:

0:00-0:53 Psychedelic folk

0:53-1:34 Hard rock

1:34-2:05 Traditional doom metal

2:05-3:05 Psychedelic rock

3:05-3:46 Traditional doom metal

I'd suggest that the best fit for this one is heavy psych personally.

Howlin' Wolf - "The Back Door Wolf" (1973)

Chicago blues.

I'm not sure it's all that essential that we do that to be honest but we'll see how we go.

Let's take a look at "Sleeping Village" today. Heavy metal? Hard rock? Blues rock? Conventional doom metal?

Hhmm... I forgot that "Evil Woman, Don't Play Your Games With Me" wasn't on some versions of the album. That complicates things a little. Perhaps we come to a position on "Wicked World" at the tail end of this exercise & then treat the whole collection of songs as one record?

Extreme - "II Pornograffitti" (1990)

Like most people, I think I first heard mention of Boston hard rockers Extreme through their 1990 sophomore album “II Pornograffitti”. I believe our paths may first have crossed when I won a copy of their “Decadence Dance” promotional cassingle on a local Sydney radio program. I can’t say that it did a lot for me to be honest but the skill sets of guitar virtuoso Nuno Bettencourt certainly weren’t lost on me. The “More Than Words” single blew up in a major way shortly afterwards & I took the opportunity to grab a dubbed copy of the album from a school mate, determined to hear more of what this Bettencourt character had to offer. He didn’t disappoint either but the album as a whole didn’t really connect with me like I’d hoped & I haven’t revisited it since so it’s about time to see how time has treated it.

Extreme certainly seemed like a band that were determined to make it big. They’d signed with a fairly major label in California’s A&M with their self-titled debut being released in 1989 & passing most people by. The band member’s lives would all change shortly afterwards though & they’d be household names only a year or two later. Extreme had done well to keep a very solid line-up together as it would have been so easy for it to all fall to pieces but they made it through to their sophomore record with A&M investing in former Accept guitarist Michael Wagener to oversee the production duties. Wagener already had some production runs on the board with releases like Dokken’s “Breakin’ The Chains” & “Under Lock & Key”, Keel & Skid Row’s self-titled albums & Stryper’s “Soldiers Under Command” all appearing on his resume by that point which kinda gives you an indication that the label had plans for a fairly commercially accessible release too. If that was the case then they would have been very happy with the outcome because “II Pornograffitti” was very much the radio hit they’d been hoping for, Wagener& Bettencourt’s production efforts amounting to a shiny collection of unintimidating, MTV-friendly songs that both your dad & your little sister could get their head around very comfortably.

“II Pornograffitti” is currently tagged as a funk metal release on the Metal Academy database which seems like a grossly misguided assessment of the album to be honest. If it was going to qualify as funk metal then one would have thought that it would a) be remotely funky & b) be an actual metal release. Neither of these things are true with “II Pornograffitti” sitting far more comfortably in the glam metal space than anything else. You can also expect to hear a examples of pop rock here & there for added commercial impact. The flashy guitar work of former Satellite Party axeman Bettencourt is the clear link to metal & he absolutely slays here, bringing to mind the elite exponents of his craft like Eddie Van Halen & George Lynch in the process. The rhythm section of bassist Pat Badger & drummer Paul Geary lay down a rock-solid platform for him to work off & had both clearly paid their dues by this point while former Van Halen front man Gary Cherone contributes a charismatic performance that would quickly see him making a name for himself in the industry.

Despite the musical talent on show though, I struggle with the blatant commercialism & the lack of substance in a lot of this material which was so clearly still targeting a Sunset Strip party crowd. The consistent use of cheesy gang vocals & bubblegum chorus hooks doesn’t help things much & neither do the sleazy lyrical innuendos. I guess I just expected a bit more from these guys to be honest as there are some hints at what they were capable of in highlights such as the glam metal stomper “Li’l Jack Horny” or acoustic pop rocker “Hole Hearted” (my personal favourite). “It(‘s A Monster)”, the title track & the super shredding “He-Man Woman Hater” are all pretty enjoyable too but then you also have to sift through disposable filler such as the vocal jazz track “When I First Kissed You”, the grossly overrated folk pop of Extreme’s calling card “More Than Words” & the God-awful pop rock of “Song For Love” which sounds far too much like it should have been played at the end of a Bill & Ted movie instead of KISS’ “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You”.

I think it’s fair to say that I wasn’t the target audience for this record & I seriously doubt that Extreme ever intended me to be either as they were far better suited to a crowd that lived for bands like Living Colour, Electric Boys & Bang Tango. The links to metal are tenuous at best but I doubt Extreme give the slightest fuck as they’ve built a long-term career that still sees them touring Australian shores all these decades later off the back of this album. It certainly needs to be asked whether it should stay on the Metal Academy database though.

3/5

Windir - "Likferd" (2003)

Norwegian melodic black metallers Windir & I have had a very rocky relationship over the years since I first encountered them very late in my late 1990’s tape trading days. I can vaguely remember digging their 1997 debut album “Sóknardalr” at the time however the melodic black metal movement was still in somewhat of a honeymoon period so it's appeal may have been a touch stronger than it is now that it's been so long since Dissection first ripped us all a new one. I didn’t come into contact with Windir’s more widely celebrated records until 2009 when I took in their three subsequent full-lengths in quick succession with none of them offering me very much in the way of enjoyment. Their accessible & often folky take on the black metal model was very much at odds with my own feelings on what black metal should ultimately be so I found myself struggling significantly the majority of the time. 1999’s “Arntor” & 2001’s “1184” did nothing for me whatsoever but I do have some recollection of Windir’s appeal slowly growing with each release with their final effort “Likferd” coming closest to the mark so this month’s feature release represents a good opportunity to firm up my position on what would ultimately prove to be Windir’s swansong.

Let’s be very clear from the onset, not a lot had changed in the two years since “1184”. Windir had maintained their six-piece lineup & their label Head Not Found Records must have been very happy with the reception for the previous album as they once again engaged former Thou Shalt Suffer bassist Torbjørn Akkerhaugen to produce the band’s fourth full-length album “Likferd” at Akkerhaugen Lydstudio so they were clearly looking to repeat the same formula that had been so successful for them previously. The result is a stunningly glossy sounding record that is as easy on the ear as any black metal release you’re likely to find. The performances are also outstanding with all of the parts being executed with precision. Admittedly the band stay relatively within themselves & keep things uncluttered in the interest of maximum accessibility but I’d still suggest that current Vreid & former Cor Scorpii drummer Steingrim could possibly have upped the ante a bit as his beats are a little lacking in the extremity we’ve come to expect from the genre over the years.

One of the elements that I couldn’t deal with about Windir’s sound previously was their tendency to tip-toe along the borders of the folk metal subgenre. I think most of our regulars will be well aware of my hatred for the vast majority of folk metal releases so I doubt that’ll come as a surprise. Thankfully though, “Likferd” sees Windir keeping their distance from the folk melodies for the most part which was a most welcome discovery. They also indulge in a little more traditional black metal savagery which was also well received with the tracks that offered me the most appeal unsurprisingly matching up with those moments very accurately. There’s still a lot more unintimidating use of melody than I’m comfortable with on “Likferd” though so let’s not get too excited just yet. They’re very much the epitome of the subgenre actually & often accentuate their more epic moments with some borderline cheesy keyboards to further test my patience. Valfar’s vocals aren’t particularly interesting either. They simply sound like ten thousand other black metal front men & don’t stand out all that much due to the fact that I’ve heard it all so many times before.

In fairness, the tracklisting gets off to a decent start with opener “Resurrection of the Wild” being pretty enjoyable. The next four tracks aren’t awful but I can’t say that they offered me too much in the way of appeal. Then we get to album highlight “On The Mountain of Goats” though which is a very solid black metal outing indeed & may even be my favourite Windir track overall to tell you the truth. It's no surprise that it's the least popular track on the album which should tell you something about my compatibility with a band like Windir. At this point I was wondering whether “Likferd” might actually be able to drag a decent score out of me which is a feat that Windir had never come close to achieving in the past. Unfortunately that’s where things descend fairly rapidly though with the last two songs (“Dauden” & “Ætti mørkna”) being absolutely none of my business & ensuring that the album would once again fall on the wrong side of my quality cut-off point.

Look, I don’t think anyone expected me to be dishing out any four-star ratings for a release that sounds like this one but I have to say that Windir had improved a touch with each of their last couple of records being better than the last. It’s perhaps a shame then that band leader Valfar would pass away before he’d had the opportunity to create the release that would eventually see me finally accepting his art. The rest of the band would go on to take part in other Norwegian melodic black metal bands like Mistur, Cor Scorpii & Vreid after Windir disbanded & if you dig those acts then you’ll likely get a lot out of “Likferd” than I do.

3/5

Yeah, it's a hard/blues rock tune for mine. No metal there whatsoever.

What's everyone's thoughts on "Evil Woman, Don't Play Your Games With Me" then? Hard rock? Blues rock? Heavy metal?