Daniel's Reviews

Well what do you know!? I do actually like a Savatage record after all! It turns out that if you drag the microphone away from Jon Oliva & his overly theatrical banshee shrieking & then strip back some of the symphonic schmaltz in the arrangements that you're left with a more than decent heavy metal album, particularly when you insert the very capable Zachary Stevens & his more traditionally impressive hard rock voice. The influence of Jon Oliva isn't completely removed here as his voluntary step back from the band in order to concentrate on overcoming his demons didn't see him being able to completely separate himself from his lifelong passion & here we see him making a good fist of the song-writing, production & keyboard duties. I was genuinely surprised to find that the consistent use of Jon's piano within the context of a heavy metal record has actually worked to add colour rather than diminishing the impact of the heavy guitars.

Guitar virtuoso Criss Oliva is unsurprisingly in fine form & "Edge Of Thorns" would prove to be a fitting swan song for him with his untimely death in a car accident only just around the corner. The arrangements may not be as complex as they were on the previous couple of albums but there's more of a progressive edge to this material than we'd heard from a Savatage record in the past, so much so in fact that I'd be tempted to give "Edge Of Thorns" a dual subgenre tag. Tracks like "Labyrinths", "Degrees Of Sanity", Conversation Piece" & "Miles Away" have a glistening shine to them that would see them fitting more than comfortably on a Queensryche record. On the other hand, Savatage haven't completely been able to let go of their penchant for commercial hard rock & there are a few moments that remind me a fair bit of Skid Row which isn't as bad as it might sound as I don't mind a bit of Sebastian Bach & co. at times.

Unfortunately though, "Edge of Thorns" has left a bit of its potential in the tank due to the inclusion of a couple of very cheesy ballads, the worst of which (the God-awful "All That I Bleed") sees my score dropping by a half star which is disappointing given the impressive strength of highlights like the title track, "Degrees Of Sanity" & my personal favourite "Conversation Piece". Still.... credit where it's due & this is easily the best Savatage record I've heard to date.

For fans of Queensryche, Virgin Steele & Crimson Glory.

Music is such an amazing part of the world in that it can play so many different roles & satisfy so many urges depending on your mood & environment. Sometimes you just want something to throw on in the background in order to fill the space & create an atmosphere while at others you want to fully immerse yourself in the ambition & artistry of the composer by sitting in a dark room with headphones on or attending a live performance. There are times when you want to hear something familiar that doesn’t challenge you too much while the next day you may want to be opened up to something completely foreign. Well trust me when I say that Melbourne-based progressive metal outfit Lucid Planet’s 2020 sophomore effort (simply entitled “Lucid Planet II”) offers so much compositional complexity & musical ambition that you’ll be doing yourself a disservice by not giving it your full focus.

I’d never heard of Lucid Planet before one of our most highly regarded & valued Metal Academy members Xephyr nominated it for The Infinite feature release status a week or so back which is unusual for a band from my homeland & particularly for one of this quality. There hasn’t been a huge amount of buzz in the metal scene around the release of “Lucid Planet II” as far as I’m aware so I had absolutely no idea of what to expect going into it other than the general connections to Tool that seem to be a commonly used reference point. But having now sat through the entire 68 minute duration of the album in full a few times I can honestly say that I’ve been left dumbfounded as to why this artist is not a household name in the world of progressive music in general. Perhaps I’m just still too stuck in my extreme metal bubble to notice but I don’t think that’s the case & it’s left me a little saddened that a record like this one can slip through the cracks as easily as it could have if it hadn’t been brought to my attention by the wonder that is the Metal Academy website (see what I did there? I saw an opening & I took it.) This is a very real reflection of the impatient & unappreciative music market we now have in the age of internet streaming in my opinion although it's hard to deny that the internet has made up for it by drawing me to this release in the end anyway.

While looking at the album cover before pressing play for the first time, I was intrigued as to what image & identity it was trying to portray because it combines a number of disparate elements that shouldn’t really work together but somehow do. You’ve got the eye of “Lateralus”-era Tool, a band name that’s very much aligned with an ethno-ambient aesthetic & a highly complex & psychedelic image of a tunnel into a world that’s simultaneously both organic & alien. It seemed very strange for a metal release at first but after sitting through the album a couple of times it all seemed to come together beautifully & now I look at the same image in amazement at just how perfectly it has sums up the musical experience the album has in store for you.

You see, although “Lucid Planet II” is generally referred to as a progressive metal record, metal is only a piece of a much larger puzzle. Sure, it forms the basis for Lucid Planet to build their expansive array of ideas around but you certainly don’t have to be a metal fan to enjoy this record. In fact, I’d suggest that ANY fan of high quality, cerebral music & art in general should find interest in it, regardless of taste or demographic. It offers a superbly devised concept that’s been stunningly executed with the result seeing the listener taken on a journey through numerous fascinating & exotic landscapes without ever feeling unfocused or self-indulgent. It’s really fucking impressive that a relatively unknown band from Melbourne have been able to pull this off actually & I’ve been well impressed to say the least.

As I suggested earlier, the basis of the Lucid Planet sound is built around the rhythmically complex riffage of Tool & you won’t struggle to hear their trademark alternative metal crunch at numerous times across the tracklisting. But unlike most Tool copy-cats, it’s worth noting that Lucid Planet also have a good understanding of the art of tension & release & this sees them being able to build atmospheres slowly over time before reaching well-timed crescendos of significant weight. But at the same time, almost all of the eight tracks on “Lucid Planet II” incorporate a diverse palate of influences. The sounds of the natural world clearly hold a strong place in the hearts of the band because there’s a noticeably organic feel to most of this material with the tribal ambience of artists like Dead Can Dance & Steve Roach popping up time & time again, particularly on “Entrancement” which is made up almost entirely of this sound. The production style is super crisp & bright which may not highlight the heavier aspects of Lucid Planet’s sound but it certainly accentuates the psychedelic elements at play & often reminds me of artists from the electronic music scene. Just check out the second half of “Organic Hard Drive” for example where Lucid Planet don’t even try to hide their passion for psychedelic psytrance artists like Atmos & Andromeda. But the amazing thing about this is that they’ve managed to match their influences in terms of quality while also integrating the influence into their sound so beautifully that it not only sounds entirely natural (despite having likely never been attempted before) but becomes a highlight of the piece in general. “Digital Ritual” is another example of this as it wouldn’t sound out of place on an album from psybient artists like Carbon Based Lifeforms or Shpongle but also sounds quite natural when presented in the context of a tracklisting that includes melodic prog rock tunes like “Offer” which sounds more like Porcupine Tree than it does Tool but still manages to take a brief dalliance with the sort of dub that Leftfield liked to experiment with on their classic “Leftism” album. It’s astounding that Lucid Planet have been able to achieve this really, particularly given that they’re a band from my country that I’ve never even heard of & one that’s only on their second album. The ambition & musicianship here is nothing short of astonishing.

The vocal skills of front man Luke Turner probably aren’t anything truly special when viewed in isolation if I’m being honest & that could be viewed as a weakness but I think that would be a harsh assessment. Not everyone can possess a truly captivating voice as that requires a level of x-factor that really doesn’t have all that much to do with the ability to sing in key. But even though Luke may not reside in the elite tier of prog vocalists, Lucid Planet have managed to accentuate & enhance his contribution through some incredibly precise doubling & harmonizing in the studio & this proves to be somewhat of a master stroke. In fact, when combined with the addition of the gorgeous backup vocals of Jade Alice it becomes very easy to forget those initial feelings of skepticism & by the end of my second listen I was already finding Luke’s vocals to be a lot more endearing.

Overall, I simply can’t fault “Lucid Planet II”. It’s a complete musical experience that’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. The tracklisting is very consistent & it’s only the fact that the couple of the more ambient works (see “Entrancement” & “Digital Ritual”) probably don’t tick my boxes quite as much as the more substantial & heavier tracks that stops me from awarding full marks but trust me when I say that it was definitely something I considered & I don’t say that lightly. Epic pieces like “Anamnesis”, “On The Way” & “Zenith” represent perfect examples of heavy progressive music in my opinion & I challenge any member of our The Infinite clan to find a way not to love this album after giving it the repeat listens required in order to fully understand its unique charms.

For fans of Tool, Karnivool & Soen.

Back when the Metal Academy website first went live a few years ago now, I had the opportunity to choose my clans of choice & honestly thought it would be a complete no-brainer. I’ve always been an extreme metal fan first & foremost so the option of allocating myself The Pit, The Horde, The Fallen & The North was an obvious one. But over time I began to realise that my preferences within The North weren’t as broad as they were for the other three clans & I opted to drop back to three clans. High quality black metal still clearly sat amongst the most elite genres for me however the scope of the black metal sound had expanded significantly since the 1990’s & I found that the modern scene included a whole plethora of different variations or sub-subgenres that often offered me very little appeal. Sometimes I’d even find it hard to understand the appeal in an artist that was generally well-regarded by the audience for your more conventional black metal & 2019’s sophomore album from US multi-instrumentalist Funereal Presence is a pretty good example of this.

“Achatius” is made up of four lengthy pieces that all exceed the ten minute mark with lone member Bestial Devotion (also the drummer for fellow US black metallers Negative Plane) producing a package that offers considerable structural variation & always keeps the listener on their toes through consistent changes-ups. The Funereal Presence sound is certainly built on the old-school mentality of classic black metal bands like Darkthrone & Bathory however there’s a greater level of complexity in the use of melody here, at times even bordering on the melodic black metal subgenre. It’s this use of melody that gives Funereal Presence their own unique sound as it often feels a little unusual or avant-garde, despite the fact that there’s nothing all that obscure happening when you examine things closely. The use of non-traditional instruments like church bells also contributes to this & is a noteworthy feature of the album as a whole.

The production job is clear & accessible without ever moving away from the lo-fi black metal aesthetic & I think it does the material justice. It’s interesting that the performances are often pretty dodgy though, particularly the drumming which sounds very much like poor Bestial is pushing himself a little further than his technical limitations should really allow for & the same can be said for some of the guitar work which struggles for timing (check out the clean section in “Wherein Seven Celestial Beasts Are Revealed To Him” for example – yuck!), a flaw that was perhaps accentuated by to the inconsistencies in the drumming. For this reason, I definitely think that “Achatius” had the potential to be more than what we’ve received. The inclusion of some more highly skilled & instrument-specific third parties could have taken this material to another level however you would usually have thought that a one-man band would be very tight given that its conforming to just the one overarching vision. That’s certainly not the case here & I find myself struggling a little bit as a result. Perhaps Bestial Devotion simply found it tough to get his tracks down tightly without the backing of other instrumentalists during the recording of each track? It’s certainly possible from my experience in the studio.

The other thing I struggle with is the more melodic material which I find to not only take me outside of my comfort zone further than I’m comfortable with but also to sound pretty sickly at times. Bestial Devotion’s decision to utilize cow bell at various points across the tracklisting was never a good idea either. I’ve always been a strong detractor of that particular rhythmic instrument’s metal credentials & would actually go so far as to suggest that it should be banned altogether. It probably won’t come as any sort of surprise that the more extreme sections of the album offer me the most appeal though with second track “Wherein A Messenger Of The Devil Appears” being my clear highlight. The other three tracks simply fall short of the mark for me, particularly the two tracks that close out the album which were a clear step down from the A-side.

I don’t think too many black metal fans will have trouble with the vocals which sit comfortably within the safe confines of the genre however they’re also not particularly engaging & don’t really serve as the focal point at any stage in my opinion. If you’re going to buy into “Achatius” then it’s likely for the melodic complexity in the guitar work rather than the extreme nature of the vocals though. The occasional rough-shod yet psychotic Quorthon-esque guitar solo is a nice touch which probably could have been explored a little further although Bestial Devotion’s limited capabilities in this area are probably a large part of the reason for this & that kinda sums up my issues with the album to be honest. I don’t mind a black metal album that’s low on technical skill but caters for it with pure darkness & evil. “Achatius” aims significantly higher than that though & doesn’t stick within its technical limitations which leads to this ol’ metal musician sporting a fair few cringes throughout the 49 minute run time. There’s enjoyment to be had when Funeral Presence keep it simpler & more aggressive but I struggle with his more ambitious moments & this has led to an underwhelming overall impression of the album.

For fans of Negative Plane, Cultes des Ghoules & Darkthrone.

My knowledge of Liverpool-based metalcore outfit Loathe was pretty limited leading into my first sitting with their sophomore album “I Let It In & It Took Everything”. I’d seen their name tossed around the traps for a few years & had definitely noticed the attention that this record had drawn from the metal press however I’d never felt the urge to check them out before. Unlike many of my old-school peers though, I’ve always had a soft spot for high quality metalcore & the idea of cross-pollination with a Deftones-influenced alternative metal sound certainly sounded appealing as I’ve slowly become a big fan of Deftones over the last decade or so.

My first impressions of “I Let It In & It Took Everything” were very good. This was clearly a quality record that had been produced by an imaginative & ambitious group of capable musicians. Even the opening ambient piece “Theme” gave a strong indication that Loathe meant business. In fact, all three of the short ambient pieces scattered across the tracklisting offer deep & full synthesized tones that attest to a strong pedigree in atmospheric music & I found them to be a really nice contribution. Then once the proper songs kicked off I was surprised by just how intense Loathe can be. Up until that point I’d been expecting the more accessible Deftones-influenced alternative metal material to represent the stronger side of the equation based on the vast majority of the reviews I’d read however this was definitely not the case in practise. Loathe’s metalcore sound is not only well produced but it’s also as abrasive as fuck with front man Kadeem France absolutely screaming his lungs out &, in doing so, topping most of his metalcore contemporaries for sheer electricity & aggression. Then, when you throw in his ability to sing in a sweet Chino Moreno style you get a captivating & exhilarating performance.

In saying that, I can’t say that Loathe manage to match Chino’s classic material with Deftones. The hooks simply aren’t as strong & I find myself looking forward to the more abrasive metalcore material like the classic duo of B-side monsters “Gored” & album highlight “Heavy Is The Head That Falls With the Weight Of A Thousand Thoughts” which even features an intro section that sounds uncannily like Deafheaven style blackgaze. These two seem to press a lot harder on my musical sweet spot & remind me very much of a less complex Dillinger Escape Plan. As far as percentages go though, “I Let It In & It Took Everything” is unquestionably a combination of the two sounds with the alternative stuff often characterized by those signature down-strummed shoegaze chords & the more intense material regularly employing a simpler version of the rhythmic riff structures of Meshuggah’s djent sound. The way that Loathe combine their variety of different influences into the one glistening package isn’t always fluent & collaborative however it’s always of a high quality & never fails to lose my attention.

Overall, I find Loathe’s second full-length to be a very solid release that’s completely free of duds & has been particularly well produced, particularly the powerful bass guitar sound which drives much of this material. Loathe clearly possessed a broad palate of musical ideas by this point in their careers & I really enjoy their artistic vision for such a new band. I’ve noticed that the album also comes in an instrumental version & I have to question the merit of such a release when Kadeem France’s vocal delivery is such an integral component of the band’s makeup however it’s hard to deny that Loathe is capable of pulling it off from a purely instrumental point of view. “I Let It In & It Took Everything” is a high quality alternative metalcore record that represents the best example of that particular combination that I’ve experienced to date.

For fans of 36 Crazyfists, early Issues & the last couple of Northlane albums.

Sometimes a release comes along that leaves you wondering what rock you’ve been hiding under. A release whose qualities are so profound that it immediately adjusts the way you think about the world & has you considering new directions that you previously didn’t know existed. I usually find these sort of recordings to be those that question the musical status quo by taking on our stereotypes & showing us that we don’t necessarily know everything just yet & the fifth album from Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu certainly does that.

I’ve been aware of Oranssi Pazuzu since their 2009 debut album “Muukalainen puhuu” but haven’t really given them much time until now to be perfectly honest. I guess my experiences with other supposed “psychedelic black metal” outfits haven’t been all that positive over the years which is unusual given my huge fascination with psychedelic rock & its incorporation into other subgenres like doom metal, sludge metal, post-metal, stoner metal & drone metal. But the overwhelmingly positive critical response to “Mestarin kynsi” has tweaked my interest & its unusual subgenre tagging has finally convinced me that it would be an interesting discussion topic for Metal Academy so I’ve finally bitten the bullet & awarded it feature releases status for The Infinite off the back of its “avant-garde metal” tagging on other sites.

Sometimes releases that challenge the listener’s existing understanding of what extreme metal can be can taken a few listens to fully grasp & can be real growers but “Mestarin kynsi” hit me from the word go, so much so that I immediately started wondering if I might have to rethink my album of the year nomination with only a couple of weeks left in the year. The sounds coming from my speakers were like nothing I’d heard before but also felt so fully realised that I never felt uneasy or required any sort of adjustment period & that’s the sign of a next level artist. The other thing that sprang to mind fairly early on was just how little justice the genre-tagging on other prominent internet sites has been giving Oranssi Pazuzu as they really seem to be clutching at straws. Psychedelic rock? Really? Can you see fans of The Doors or Jimi Hendrix going nuts over this release? They’d likely run for the hills in terror. Avant-garde metal? Well, yes it is avant-garde by the very definition of the term but that tag is usually reserved for releases that sound inherently weird & that require time & familiarity to get comfortable with. The combination of disparate genres you’ll hear on “Mestrin kynsi” is so well executed that you almost feel like you’ve been listening to this stuff your whole life & I found myself instantly comfortable so I don’t regard that tag as being particularly relevant either. And then there’s the black metal thing. There is absolutely no doubt that the vocals of front man Jun-His fall firmly into the black metal camp. In fact, I’d argue that they’re some of the most definitive & powerful in all of black metal & I think that’s a strong enough statement to warrant the album being lumped in with the darkest of metal genres but I hear very little else that hints at genuine black metal from an instrumental point of view to be honest. Interestingly, the subgenre that I feel has the strongest claim on “Mestarin kynsi” is post-metal & it baffles me that this element isn’t more readily referred to. The lengthy periods of repeated motifs while other elements gradually build around it, the huge crescendos, the use of atmospheric ambience, the fact that the music utilises the signature tools that of metal but has you questioning whether it’s metal at all… all of that is in line with the classic post-metal model & if you replaced Jun-His’ vocals with some sludge/hardcore ones I think you’d find that the public perception would change dramatically, particularly as there are various riffs utilised across the album that sound pretty similar in style to the leading players from the atmospheric sludge metal movement. The psychedelic component is worth mentioning but I don’t actually feel like it’s too strong for the post-metal tag to cover & the same can be said for the electronic element which beautifully colours the music in various different ways but never comes across as sounding overly quirky or forced.

Back to those vocals, one thing that I find truly amazing is that Jun-His can get away with growling & screaming like a demon over this music which doesn’t often hint at black metal’s darkness. The instrumentation has an ethereal beauty about it that I would generally have thought would have been in conflict with your more blasphemic of vocalists (think Deathspell Omega) but here they seem to work perfectly & I put that down to Oranssi Pazuzu having complete clarity of what they’re trying to achieve & total confidence in their abilities to make it stick. I’ve rarely heard a more imposing front man & he really does make this album a lot more appealing than it may have been with your standard black metal fodder. The way the instrumentation builds gradually in subtle ways underneath his unrestrained brutality is a talent that the band milk for all it’s worth with each track obtaining the required crescendo in different but equally abrasive & intense ways. It’s kinda their thing. Sure there are a few jerky transitions included here & there where it sounds like the band have attempted to paste two disparate sections together but those individual sections are simply so compelling that it’s very hard to argue a case against them residing in the same piece. The three tracks that make up the A-side are nothing short of audio perfection & you’ll rarely find a more gripping & transcendent side of metal. The quality does taper of just a touch at the start of the B-side with “Oikeamielisten Sali” being the clear low point of the album but even then it’s a very high quality piece of work & this only leads into further glories over the last couple of tracks with the final climax of long & repetitive closer “Taivaan portti” representing the most violent yet euphoric end to an incrediblly creative album.

“Mestarin kynsi” brings together a large quantity of influences that should have no place together in theory but in practice come across as pure genius. The jangly noise rock guitars, the Massive Attack style filtered electronic bass lines, the krautrock experimentation…. there's even a question around whether a lot of this stuff is even metal but it all works wonderfully well & has left me feeling somewhat embarrassed that I’m only just coming to this release now when it is so clearly something that I should have invested the time in earlier. Oranssi Pazuzu are an absolute breath of fresh air in a scene that’s so chock full of pretenders who are simply trying to emulate their idols. They’re not only ground-breaking but have also presented their unusual sound with such fluency that they still achieve a greater level of accessibility than most extreme metal outfits & this is the key behind their surprising success. I can’t stress enough what a magical experience “Mestarin kynsi” is for a music tragic like myself & I’m genuinely grateful that I’ve discovered it. Better late than never as they say. And yes, this is my album of the year. No one will catch it at this late stage & I’m not sure I’d want them to anyway. It’s a fitting & deserved champion in my opinion.

For fans of A Forest Of Stars, Hail Spirit Noir & Sólstafir.

The classic doom/death sound has always been something that I’ve been heavily attracted to as it combines two of my favourite sounds for a result that generally equals or transcends the sum of its parts. In fact, it could be argued that I wasn’t all that big on your more traditional doom metal sound until the more significant doom/death exponents appeared in the early 1990s with England’s My Dying Bride sitting amongst the most important & influential in my musical journey. It took exactly one song to leave me hooked with the title track from 1992’s “Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium” E.P. leaving me completely soul-destroyed & begging for more, a task which they willingly proceeded to fulfill with aplomb over the next four years. My Dying Bride’s best work was not only gripping enough to play a significant role in the greatest period of musical discovery & exploration in my life to date but, so profound was their impact on me, that they also assisted in my emotional development as a young man. By the late 90’s however, the doom/death explosion had reached its peak & begun its descent & my interest in metal as a whole was starting to wane which would see me spending most of the 2000’s immersing myself in the world of electronic music. When I finally returned to metal in 2009 I had some catching up to do so I quickly turned to my beloved My Dying Bride for guidance. I would soon find that 2001’s “The Dreadful Hours” album was held up in the highest esteem by fans & critics alike so my hopes were lifted at the prospect of another life-changing musical highlight from the leaders of the game.

“The Dreadful Hours” can be regarded as an album that’s very much representative of what your average My Dying Bride fan was wanting to hear from them at the time & it depends on where you stand in regards to that statement as to whether you’ll be overjoyed or underwhelmed by it. When I first reviewed it back in November 2010 I found that I fell comfortably into the latter camp. I certainly saw some appeal in what I was hearing but felt that the band was simply revising past glories in a less-inspired manner, an opinion that was provided additional weight by the fact that more than 20% of the album was taken up by a re-recorded version of a past classic. It all sounded like a band going through the motions & trying to force out the album their fans were all wanting & the seemingly unanimous praise the album seemed to draw from the global metal community has left me confused ever since. My confusion reached a new peak recently when I discovered that “The Dreadful Hours” was My Dying Bride’s top ranking release on another prominent music ratings website, sitting clear of bona fide classics like “Turn Loose The Swans” & “The Angel & The Dark River”. I immediately raised my wretched face to the heavens & muttered “What is this madness?!” It was a clear indication that the time was right to reassess my position.

I once again found myself struggling a bit during my first listen to be honest. The production is excellent as you would expect but I wasn’t really able to connect all that well with the song-writing & delivery. It certainly sounded like My Dying Bride but…. there was something missing. That was until the stunning re-enactment of the epic fourteen minute “The Return Of The Beautiful” from their 1992 debut full-length “As The Flower Withers” (this time renamed “The Return TO The Beautiful”) which not only represents the clear highlight of the album but also sits up there with the greatest pieces of work for the subgenre as a whole. Yyyeessss….. there it is. That’s what I’ve been missing. I quickly returned to the start of the album to see if I’d just overlooked the quality in the other material & my second listen saw me starting to identify & come to terms with my qualms.

One of the most magnificent features of the classic MDB material was the inclusion of the violin which added a truly majestic aura & an overall beauty to the music. "The Dreadful Hours" is really missing that aspect. The band have attempted to replace it through the use of keyboards which generally work quite well but are rarely as emotionally engaging. There’s also not as much consistency in the quality of the riffs as there was during their classic period with some of them sounding a touch generic & this element sees most tracks falling a little short of their potential. I think "Black Heart Romance" definitely achieves the classic MDB sound best of the new material & after several listens I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a classic in its own right however the fact that "The Return To The Beautiful" clearly takes another step up from there shows that My Dying Bride aren’t quite what they were, despite leaving clear proof that they’re still a tier one player.

Probably my major gripe with latter day My Dying Bride is with Aaron’s clean vocal delivery though. On “The Dreadful Hours” we see him alternating between his powerful death growls & his more melodic & gothic-tinged clean singing & my feelings on the two are like chalk & cheese. Where his growls bring the more sombre material a genuine sense of desolation, his clean stuff comes across as very limited & repetitive. His phrasing is always the same & I feel like he’s about to cry a lot of the time. Now that may appeal to a lot of people but I’ve always found that sort of thing to be overly melodramatic & emasculating. Label me as the classic cold-hearted male that’s detached from his emotional side if you like but I don’t like to hear grown men whimpering & whinging all that much, particularly in my extreme metal. Aaron does a lot of rehashing of old material here too. The phrasing in "My Hope, The Destroyer" is simply too close to earlier material for example & the lyrics also make me want to kick him in the nuts & tell him to harden the fuck up. "The Deepest Of All Hearts" is a fine example of this too & the up-front position the vocals take in the mix doesn’t help much to be fair. Why do so many of the lines have to end with “me” & “you”?? It’s all a bit annoying as the death growls inevitably see my ears pricking up & my general attitude soaring but I have to admit that repeat listens have seen me able to look past Aaron’s performance a lot more than I used to.

Having had my whinge, this is musically a pretty heavy record. The instrumental performances are all very tight & chunky & there’s only the one track that I don’t enjoy in the dreary nine-minute "Le Figile della Tempesta" which sees Aaron at his worst over a repeated lead guitar motif that’s been pulled straight from their classic “The Cry Of Mankind”. I can easily see how “The Dreadful Hours” offers a fairly universal appeal & I do enjoy it more than I did previously, mainly because I’ve had time to get over my qualms a little bit & just take in the positives a bit more. I mean there is still a lot of the classic My Dying Bride sound here. It’s just that I’m left with a numbing feeling that cries out "you’ve heard it all before". I guess I just think that it’s a bit overrated rather than harboring any doubts about it being a strong record in its own right. It’s a high quality doom release & is deserving of a higher rating than I gave it previously but it doesn’t entice me to listen to it over their past classics & its closing masterpiece serves as a reminder of the real depth & magnificence that My Dying Bride are capable of at their very best.

The industrial metal sound was essentially invented by two fairly different but no less forward-thinking artists on opposite sides of the globe during the late 1980’s. On the one side you had former Napalm Death guitarist Justin Broadrick’s Godflesh project coming out of Birmingham, England which was potentially the first to combine a genuine metal sound with industrial music. And on the other side of the globe you had Chicago four-piece Ministry who had slowly integrated a metal component into their sound over many years after beginning life as something entirely different. Both have maintained their presence in the scene for the more than three decades that have since passed &, as is so often the case in music, the originators have not only retained their relevance but are still the benchmark with which all industrial metal is judged. I love them both but it’s interesting that the emotions they are each capable of drawing from me are quite different &, despite utilizing similar tool sets, I wouldn’t say that they sound particularly alike either. 

Ministry actually predate Godflesh by many years, having first formed as a synthpop act way back in 1981. The band is centred around the musical genius of multi-instrumentalist Al Jourgensen who is a complex & constantly evolving human being, not only from a musical sense but also from a personal one. It’s interesting that he’s given drastically contrasting accounts of how his extreme change in musical direction took place. At one point Al had downplayed his early stylistic approach & he was quoted as saying that his original record label Arista Records had assumed total creative control over the product that Ministry were producing & that the musical direction was the result of Arista having engaged external writers & producers. During another interview he changed his story slightly by stating that Arista had pressured him into adopting a sound that was more likely to be commercially successful in the market of the day. Then thirdly, there are various accounts of Al simply saying that his discovery of hardcore punk in the mid-1980’s had led to him consciously making the decision to change his style which would indicate that he had actually never had any ambitions towards a heavier sound during the early 80’s. The third option sounds the most likely to me & also seems to be backed up by his ex-wife Patty Marsh. Regardless of which story is true though, Ministry’s transition to a new label in the Warner Brothers affiliated Sire Records would see the new wave synthpop of their 1983 debut album “With Sympathy” being converted into a noticeably more industrial, electro-tinged sound for 1986’s sophomore album “Twitch” with the influence of his co-producer Adrian Sherwood & some recent touring with EBM masters Front 242 having a significant impact on the result. It would see Al becoming progressively more open to aggressive & abrasive sounds over the coming years with 1988’s “Land Of Rape & Honey” testing the waters with a significant metal component before 1989’s “The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste” album took things to their next logical extreme with Ministry finally committing to a fully integrated industrial metal sound.  

My first experiences with Ministry came through the singles that were taken from “The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste” with both “Burning Inside” & “So What” getting regular plays on late-night metal radio during the early 1990’s. I liked what I heard too. It all sounded so fresh & exciting although I have to admit that I was absolutely enraptured with the extreme metal scene at the time so I don’t think I ever sought out the full album until my brother Ben picked it & “The Land Of Rape & Honey” up shortly after becoming obsessed with Ministry’s 1992 album “Psalm 69”. Both of these records were very strong & important releases that played a huge part in the creation of a steadily growing US industrial metal scene that saw the likes of New Jersey’s Old & Boston’s Skin Chamber competing head to head with English industrialists Godflesh & Pitch Shifter. 

So this brings us to the before-mentioned “Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed & The Way To Suck Eggs” album; a release that would see Ministry taking further steps into the commercial stratosphere & one that is generally regarded as Jourgenson’s finest hour. It would also be Ministry’s last full-length with Sire Records as its subsequent success would see them being promoted by Warner Brothers with their next couple of albums receiving major label backing. “Psalm 69” would be produced by Al Jourgensen in conjunction with full-time collaborator & bass player Paul Barker with recordings taking place in both Chicago & Lake Geneva over more than a year from March 1991 to May 1992. The album was originally intended to be titled “The Tapes Of Wrath” however this would change over time with Al eventually opting to go with a title derived from the 69th chapter of Aleister Crowley’s 1913 text “The Book Of Lies” which is essentially a reference to the 69 sexual position.  

The cover artwork for “Psalm 69” was created by photographer Paul Elledge who had hit it off with Jourgensen after being employed to shoot the band on their tour for “The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste”. The two men had stayed up all night partying & this eventually led to a long-term business arrangement that saw Elledge providing the artwork for several Ministry releases over the coming years. Jourgensen gave Elledge a copy of the album recordings & Crowley’s book as reference points & the piece that eventually made the front cover was a triple exposure that Elledge felt best represented the imagery he’d uncovered in Ministry’s music & concept. It’s quite a striking image & I’m not sure it really suits the sound of the album as a whole but it certainly suits the dark majesty of some of the more easy-paced tracks like “Scare Crow” & particularly the title track. The image of the alien-esque angel has an uncomfortable quality to it that I find to be quite similar to David Lynch’s seminal “Eraserhead” film. It’s interesting that Godflesh mastermind Justin Broadrick has been quoted as saying that his classic 1989 industrial metal album “Streetcleaner” was the result of late-night “Eraserhead” viewing sessions whilst under the influence of LSD so the film seems to be in some way linked to the development of the industrial metal subgenre. It was a huge film for me personally too so perhaps that’s why I feel such an attraction to this sort of record given that the more industrial material almost mimics the tension & uneasiness of the film, although admittedly not as closely as Broadrick’s vision would. The front cover wouldn’t feature any reference to the band name or album title & I have to admit that I always question the sense in this practice as it seems to me to be a little self-indulgent. 

As with all good industrial metal, the production job that Al & Paul achieved for “Psalm 69” is almost as important as the music itself & is a magnificent example of its type. Warner Brothers had given Ministry a huge budget to work with as they’d been anticipating a major breakthrough hit following the underground buzz around the band’s previous album. Jourgensen, his wife Patty & guitarist Mike Scaccia apparently proceeded to blow most of the budget by purchasing around $1,000 worth of drugs a day but it doesn’t seem to have had a negative effect on the result. The guitar tone they achieved is absolutely superb & it gives songs like “Just One Fix”, “Jesus Built My Hotrod” & the title track an electricity & power that is impossible to ignore. It really does announce the band in no uncertain terms & then proceeds to grab your head & stuff it down your neck. Paul’s bass tone only accentuates this effect as it possesses fantastic weight & ties in beautifully with the album’s industrial themes. Bill Rieflin’s drum kit sounds suitably mechanical but if there’s one weakness to this overall production I’d suggest that it’s Bill’s snare sound which stands out in the mix very obviously. I’d describe it as a tinny slap &, although this sound would be repeated on dozens of industrial releases over the years, I can’t help but feel that Ministry might have been better served to go with something a little more bottom heavy. But fear not… the wealth of professionally layered & processed samples are nothing short of astonishing & the use of doubled & heavily effected vocals is also a major selling point that adds substantially to the unhinged & drug-addled atmosphere of “Psalm 69”. The overall package is a huge feather in Jourgensen & Barker’s caps & it shows the advantages of having a diverse array of experience to draw upon across several disparate genres. I’m honestly not sure that the album would have been quite as successful had it not been presented in such a professional & cutting-edge manner. On a side note, I'm not sure if it's just the Spotify version of the album I've been revisiting this week or not but there's a noticeable difference in volume between the various tracks & this isn't something I remember from the CD copy I'd grown up with so perhaps it's just a quirk in the streamed rip.

Musically, this was definitely the fastest & most exciting sounding Ministry record to date with the metal component having been turned up to ten on the majority of the tracklisting. In many ways it represents the most perfect union of Jourgensen’s industrial & metal influences with both components playing an equal role in the success of the record. The drum tracks have been tailor made to provide a consistent (& at times hypnotic) pulse that gives the simple yet extremely high-quality metal riffs plenty of room to inflict maximum damage. I can only imagine that the increased involvement of Scaccia in the recording process has had an impact on the riff-heavy style of many of these tracks because there’s been a noticeable step up in this department, particularly in the repeated references to thrash metal in some of the tremolo-picked bottom-string chug riffs on songs like “Just One Fix” & “Jesus Built My Hotrod”. A couple of the slower & more lumbering riff sections strangely remind me very much of early 90’s Bathory which can only be a compliment & the level of variety that’s been achieved without ever feeling like they’ve sacrificed on focus is a real highlight. 

Jourgensen & Barker were masters of tension & release & you can easily see that in their layering of the lead guitar parts which are used more as a textural tool than a melodic one most of the time. I can pick up more than the odd nod towards dance music in the band’s command of the dancefloor whilst never losing sight of their underground metal appeal. The transitions are a brilliant example of this with well-timed single-bar adjustments being used to introduce a switch back to the main theme in a similar way to that employed by techno producers. In fact, several of the big hits from “Psalm 69” would go on to become dancefloor anthems at goth & alternative clubs for decades to come given their strong beats & danceable tempos. The samples showcase a very well-defined theme with the whole record having a dark & ominous atmosphere but also dripping with a drug-crazed insanity that reminds me of a Rob Zombie horror flick. This would be an element that would be borrowed by not only Zombie himself but also by hundreds of industrial metal wannabes over the years. The slower material like the epic doom monster “Scare Crow” very effectively draws me back to my drug-fueled nights spent in Sydney goth clubs during the mid-90’s with Jourgensen seemingly tapping into the cerebral power of that sort of environment. He really is the clear ring-leader of this psychotic circus & there’s a unquestionable genius in his madness.  

It’s interesting that the album gets more industrial as it goes on & culminates with the last couple of tracks being completely industrial-focused & offering very little in the way of metal. In fact, “Corrosion” is very similar to the intense & noisy industrial techno I used to play whilst DJIng in dark underground clubs during the 2000’s. Both of these tracks were produced by Paul Barker in isolation amidst stories of a significant divide between Jourgensen & Scaccia & the rest of the band with Al claiming that the two groups recorded their parts completely separately & that he & Scaccia erased 80% of the material the other three members had recorded. Given this information, you’d have to think that it was a minor miracle that anything of value was achieved, let alone a genre-defining classic like this one. Perhaps it was simply through weight of numbers given the lengthy duration of the recording sessions & the fact that we only end up with nine of the thirty tracks that would eventuate. 

Personally, I find “Psalm 69” to be a very consistent & extremely high-quality metal record that doesn’t require flashy musicianship or an over-the-top image to make its point. There is a slight lull after the first couple of mind-blowing tracks with the short & gimmicky blast-beat driven “TV II” & the simple & thrash speed metal tune “Hero” both representing some mildly enjoyable filler, however the rest of the album is as classy, adventurous & breath-taking as you’ll find in this form of metal. For this reason, I feel that “Psalm 69” is worthy of its elite status amongst not only the industrial metal crowd but for metal music in general. It’s easily Ministry’s finest work with only Godflesh’s classic “Streetcleaner” album standing in front of it for the genre overall. 

For fans of: White Zombie, Nailbomb, Strapping Young Lad

The 1991 sophomore album from Swedish death metal godfathers Entombed is a release that I’ve been looking forward to dissecting for some time now & much of my excitement is due to the fact that the development & subsequent success of the local Swedish scene was something that practically took place in front of my young teenage eyes. In the early 1990’s, my life almost entirely revolved around the underground tape trading scene &, as a result, I feel very well equipped to tackle this record within the context of what was going on around it. Things were happening so quickly & it would only be a period of four years that would see Sweden’s earliest forays with the death metal sound being transformed into a globally recognized sound that was being copied by hundreds (if not thousands) of bands globally.

For anyone that hasn’t already read Daniel Ekeroth’s excellent historical book “Swedish Death Metal” (& I highly recommend that you do), it’s probably worth noting that whilst Entombed are generally regarded as the originators of the Swedish death metal scene, that’s not entirely accurate. The true root of the scene was arguably fellow Stockholmers Morbid; a blackened death metal outfit whose reputation is mainly built on their association with their legendary front man Dead. Morbid’s 1987 demo tape “December Moon” would achieve somewhat of a cult status in underground metal circles however many people probably aren’t aware that it also featured future Entombed members Ulf Cederlund (guitar) & LG Petrov (drums), possibly because they took on the silly pseudonyms of Napolean Puke & Drutten (Swedish for “one who tumbles down”) respectively. Morbid would eventually peter out following Dead’s defection to Norway to join Mayhem with Cederlund & Petrov staying onboard for 1988’s “The Last Supper” demo before leaving to join Nihilist (i.e. the famous precursor to Entombed) a short time later.

Nihilist was formed in 1987 by drummer Nicke Andersson, guitarist Alex Hellid & bassist Leif Cuzner with the “Premature Autopsy” demo tape being released the following year. 1989 would see it followed up with the “Only Shreds Remain” cassette with Cuzner exiting the fold shortly afterwards, but not before he had achieved a significant milestone in death metal history for it was Cuzner that had invented the infamous guitar tone that that the Swedish death metal community would make its signature for many decades afterwards. This had been accidently achieved by maxing out all of the nobs on a Boss HM-s Heavy Metal pedal which I’m sure every guitarist that owned one must have tried at some stage (me included). Clearly none had looked at it as a legitimate possibility before though. Interestingly, Leif would be replaced by Jonny Hedlund for 1989’s “Drowned” demo before Andersson decided to disband Nihilist altogether as a way of easily removing Hedlund from the group. Hedlund would subsequently form Unleashed while the other band members would adopt the Entombed moniker & record the “But Life Goes On” demo before the year was out.

“But Life Goes On” would see Entombed signing a recording contract with English death metal & grindcore label Earache Records who had risen from relative obscurity to become the leader in their field over the previous couple of years. After unearthing the UK grindcore scene through albums from Unseen Terror, Napalm Death, Carcass & O.L.D. in 1987/88, label head Digby Pearson had then cottoned on to the steadily growing death metal obsession that was simmering away in the underground tape trading community. 1989 would see him releasing a string of important records from bands like Morbid Angel, Terrorizer, Bolt Thrower, Carcass & Godflesh; all of which would have a significant impact on the global extreme metal scene & would see fans flocking to every subsequent Earache release as if their very lives depended on it. The death metal bubble was expanding ever further & it was this environment that would see the Swedish death metal scene exploding onto the scene in 1990.

Entombed’s “Left Hand Path” album is certainly known as the most significant point in that story. It really did pave the way for other Swedish bands to follow in Entombed’s foot-steps with many taking on similar attributes to give Stockholm its signature death metal sound. Many of these attributes would become attached to the work of producer Tomas Skogsberg & his Sunlight Studios in Stockholm with Grotesque’s “Incantation”, Carnage’s “Dark Recollections” & Tiamat’s “Sumerian Cry” releases all being products of Sunlight recordings at around that time. Things would further escalate for the Swedes in 1991 with Tiamat’s second album “The Astral Sleep” seeing the light of day along with a whole slew of debut releases from exciting new bands such as Unleashed, Grace, At The Gates, Carbonized, Megaslaughter, Sorcery, Therion, Authorize, Edge Of Sanity &, most notably, Dismember who were born from the ashes of Carnage & were close associates of Entombed. Dismember’s “Like An Ever Flowing Stream” album would gain them worldwide acclaim & would kick off a running argument in the death metal community as to whose debut was the best example of the Swedish sound for decades to come. It was in this creative environment that Entombed would not only need to continue making quality death metal but would also need to find another gear if they were going to hold on to their title as the premier Swedish death metal exponent.

Unfortunately for Entombed, drummer & band leader Nicke Andersson & front man LG Petrov were not seeing eye to eye at the time which culminated in Petrov being fired at an inopportune moment. Earache were keen to get some new material into the market to capitalize on the buzz around the Swedish scene though so Andersson employed Nirvana 2002 vocalist Orvar Säfström for the recording of the “Crawl” E.P. in April 1991. The union would prove to be short-lived however with the release receiving only a luke-warm reception & by the time band re-entered Sunlight Studios for the recording of “Clandestine” later in the year with Carbonized bassist Lars Rosenberg, Andersson had decided to take on the microphone duties himself.

It’s worth mentioning that my initial experience with Entombed was through a late-night metal radio program in 1990. “Left Hand Path” was somewhat of a favourite with the DJs who ran the show that I recorded each week so I was aware of the band quite early in the piece. I have to say that, while I generally enjoyed what I was hearing, Entombed’s debut never connected with me in the way that it seemed to with the rest of the death metal audience &, for this reason, it was one of the few Earache releases that I didn’t hurry out to buy. Instead, I would pick it up through tape trading & give it a few spins before moving on to sounds that were more in line with my taste at the time. The same can be said for Dismember’s debut actually. I put this down to my ears being far more interested in the more polished & proficient US strain of death metal being championed by bands like Morbid Angel, Death, Obituary & Deicide & the dirtier, punkier feel of the Swedish model didn’t interest me quite as much. When “Crawl” was released I gave it a passing glance but it also didn’t get past the cursory few spins.

“Clandestine” would be released in November 1991 & would make an immediate impact on the death metal market. The buzz around the record & the attractive cover art of Dan Seagrave would see me reconsidering my position with the band & it would become the first Entombed record that I’d purchase on release. Interestingly, my initial listens would prove that I’d timed my run very well too as this was a different beast to the ugly, stinking one that had assaulted our ear drums only the previous year. There is much more polish & precision about the production job on “Clandestine” with Skogsberg having achieved a more glossy & accessible sound by refining & improving the signature Entombed guitar tone & adding additional weight to the rhythm section. Although your ears immediately associate the guitar tone with the Sunlight Studios sound, playing “Left Hand Path” & “Clandestine” back to back shows a remarkable difference between the two. The “Clandestine” tone is noticeably cleaner & has much more definition. There’s less of a bottom end push & a greater dynamic range has been achieved through a stronger mid-range component as opposed to the noisier “Left Hand Path” sound which possessed more high end. The two sounds are equally powerful however I definitely prefer the fuller “Clandestine” one which seems to have more purity of sound. It engulfs the listener in a wall of distorted fuzz which I’m not all that comfortable to remove myself from.

Skogsberg had also employed a number of other production improvements too though. The drum sound on “Clandestine” is nothing short of phenomenal & is arguably the major selling point for the record. Andersson’s toms possess enormous depth & the whole kit is beautifully balanced while Rosenberg’s bass guitar sound is full & powerful & combines beautifully with the guitars & drums during the crunch moments to really accentuate the enormous heaviness of Entombed’s sound. Andersson’s vocals have received a lot of attention in the mixing phase too with individual phrases having been layered over the top of each other & coming from different positions in the stereo spectrum which is very effective indeed. As is the use of keyboards & movie samples to add additional atmosphere to the mix; an attribute that this record possesses in spades. To summarize, Skogsberg has dusted off a bit of the dirt from Entombed’s exterior, sanded off some of the rough edges, polished it up & given it a new coat of paint which has given “Clandestine” a lot more nuance. It not only sounds more polished than the other early Swedish albums of the time but It enabled Entombed to start competing with the Americans for overall professionalism & accessibility. I’d suggest that it really does depend on personal preference as to which model you’ll prefer but there’s very little doubt as to the one that floats my boat more & I think the production is one of the key factors in what makes “Clandestine” such a great & important death metal record.

A lot is made of the musical direction Entombed chose to take with “Clandestine”. Particularly from detractors who favour the debut. But in truth, the differences are much more subtle than we saw with the band’s subsequent leap into death ‘n’ roll territory with 1993’s “Wolverine Blues” album. In hindsight, I think it’s fair to say that we could see the early signs of that transformation here if you look closely enough. That cleaner production, the more accessible & melodic song-writing, the added groove in some of the riffs & the increased use of more controlled tempos were all elements that Entombed would draw on significantly in the coming years. But in saying that, there is really very little doubt that “Clandestine” is still a death metal record in the classic sense of the term. It’s just that some people see it as a dilution of “Left Hand Path” while others view it as an expansion on the foundations it had built. The punky back bone is still clearly visible with numerous examples of d-beat drum patterns being utilized across the tracklisting although there’s less of a reliance on it this time which can only be a positive for someone like myself that isn’t terribly interested in hardcore. Instead, Entombed have gone for a lot more variety in tempo & atmosphere which makes for a much more interesting listen in my opinion. I particularly dig the increase in doomier breakdowns with Autopsy having clearly been a big influence on the band. Some of those sections are crushingly heavy & are dripping with blood-soaked death metal pedigree. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the slower tempos work better with the signature Entombed guitar tone as the crunch is unbelievable. That’s not to say that the faster material has lost any of its potency though & I think it’s the two extreme ends of the spectrum that give Entombed the most bang for buck as far as tempo goes. Just check out the re-recorded version of the old Nihilist track “Severe Burns” for an example of just how much this band kills when they let the shackles fall to the ground & put the pedal to the metal.

“Left Hand Path” was relatively simple as far as song-writing & structure went but “Clandestine” sees Entombed lifting their game significantly in this regard with a noticeable increase in compositional complexity enabling the band to reach new heights of professionalism. Unlike the debut which was more of a collaborative affair, Anderrson was responsible for writing the entire album this time & I believe that this is significant. Nicke has often been quoted as saying that he had a strong fascination with US technical death metal masters Atheist at the time &, although you won’t hear anything particularly technical here, you can see the influence in the more expansive composition. He & Skogsberg really threw the sink at the arrangements with a whole range of frills & finer details being explored, particularly in the drumming. The album was already a total riff-fest but this extra attention to detail has really helped to maximise the impact of the transitions. The riffs themselves are generally still quite simple when viewed in isolation however they’re much more measured & deliberate in their attack & this is further highlighted by the quality of the production & performances. Even at their most brutal though, Entombed seem to have captured the perfect balance between melody & savagery here. The melodies are better constructed &, as a result, are more memorable. There are even some examples of riffs included that strongly indicate that the early Swedish melodic death metal bands like At The Gates may have borrowed a fair bit from “Clandestine”.

The vocal performance has always been a talking point when discussing this record & it seems to have been quite a divisive topic for many metal fans. There are certainly those that can’t stand Nicke Andersson’s more erratic delivery. Possibly because, despite the fact that he achieves a suitable amount of aggression, what he delivers isn’t technically a death growl. To my ears, Nicke meanders somewhere near the border of hardcore punk & death metal without ever really committing to either side. It’s interesting that Earache decided to try to fool people into believing that former Carnage bassist Johnny Dordevic was behind the microphone by showing him in the band photograph included on the album sleeve. It was true that Johnny had been performing live with the band but he wasn’t responsible for the vocals on the album. Perhaps this is an indication that Earache could see that the vocal delivery might not go down all that well with some fans & they wanted to shield Nicke a little bit? I dunno but I actually love Andersson’s vocal contribution to tell you the truth. I don’t think the difference between his & Petrov’s tones is as striking as many people seem to want to make out & I actually didn’t realise it wasn’t Petrov until I read it in a magazine some time after release. There’s a lot more variety in Nicke’s approach & he definitely brings a fresh vibe & accessibility to the table that saw Entombed becoming somewhat of a gateway band for potential new death metal fans at the time. I honestly have no idea why people get stuck into him as the vocals on a track like “Crawl” are miles better than the E.P. version with Säfström’s effort sounding weak & thin in comparison over the murkier production.

The value that Entombed placed on execution & technique seems to have increased dramatically since “Left Hand Path” too as this is a much tighter band than we’d heard previously with a substantially stronger focus being given to precision. The transitions have been expertly engineered to crush the cranium of anyone in the vicinity & the breakdowns show a true understanding of the death metal atmosphere at its most empowering & disgusting. Check out album highlight “Sinners Bleed” for example, with its “Raining Blood” style drum beat signaling the coming of something truly ominous. Entombed’s prime objective was no longer to out-violence the violent. It was to create an oozing atmosphere of pure death, in much the same way as their heroes Autopsy, only with a little more polish, class & finesse. The lead guitar work has been improved since the debut which was probably helped by the more musical platform they had to work over. They’re still not all that technically proficient but they overcome that by employing a stronger song-writing aesthetic in their composition & through the clever use of filtering in their tone. Rosenberg’s bass work is rock solid & plays a big part in driving the band’s sound to its heaviest possible extreme but it’s Andersson’s drumming that’s the real star here. This really is his record to be honest & his performance is nothing short of sensational! He brings Entombed so much of their energy & magic & it’s a credit to his technique that so many of his best moments go by without much fanfare due to his skillful compositional skills & pin-point execution. I’m certain that it was he that brought many of the interesting production additions to the table too. Some of which were a little risky like the outro section of “Crawl” which fades in gradually over the main track only isn’t exactly in key or in time, despite ultimately proving to be really effective.

So, given everything that you’ve just read, why isn’t “Clandestine” is no-brainer for full marks. Well in truth, it’s more of a decision based on taste than on quality. The remnants of Entombed’s hardcore-influenced roots still pop up just enough to prevent me from reaching complete musical euphoria which isn’t a major criticism as I still regard it as the pinnacle of the Swedish death metal sound & a good couple of steps up from its older sibling or Dismember’s debut for that matter. Where “Left Hand Path” had defined the Swedish death metal sound, “Clandestine” showed the world what it was possible to do with it. It’s a genuine classic that all death metal fans should own.

For fans of: Dismember, Grave & Carnage

1987 was a very active year for minor league Californian extreme metal label New Renaissance Records. The business was owned & run by Hellion front woman Ann Boleyn who had created the brand a couple of years earlier but commercial success would initially prove to be challenge with New Renaissance’s early releases generally passing the metal public by with little to no fanfare. 1987 would see things starting to take shape though with the label now having noteworthy releases from At War, Indestroy, Dream Death, Kublai Khan, Necrophagia & Blood Feast on their books. None of these were overnight sensations or made their artists into household names mind you but the more obsessive thrash & death metal fans out there were now starting to become aware of these names & the sounds they were pushing & amongst them would be a young Portland-based crossover thrashcore outfit by the name of Wehrmacht.

Wehrmacht were only 17 or 18 years old when their debut album “Shark Attack” hit the shelves & with a moniker like theirs you would think that there would have been a little bit of implied pressure on them to bring the violence & aggression. After all, “wehrmacht” (pronounced “vair-mahkt”) is German for “armed forces” so one would naturally expect to hear something suitably attacking. The cover artwork certainly fit the mould with “Shark Attack” sporting a cartoonish image of a zombified warrior waterskiing on the backs of two huge sharks. It’s not a high budget effort by any stretch of the imagination however it does have that authentic 80’s underground metal vibe going on & I think it kinda suits this sort of release & the market it was targeting. Interestingly, the wall behind this scene has the words “Spazztic Blur” written across it in red paint in reference to vocalist Tito Matos & guitarist Marco Zorich’s other band of that name.

“Shark Attack” would be a self-produced affair which would seem like a very strange way to go for a debut album. Especially when you consider the age & recording experience of the various band memebrs. One would have to think that there must simply have been no budget for a producer & it’s actually a bit of a shame because I think the album possesses a fair bit of untapped potential. New Renaissance releases weren’t known for their flashy big budget production jobs & this one would have to sit amongst the furthest away from that concept. What you can expect is one of the rawest & noisiest sounding records you’ve heard in quite a while but in its defense, do we really want ultra-aggressive thrashcore to be presented in a polished & clean package? I don’t think so. We just want to be able to make out all of the riffs but that’s not always the case here with all of the instrumentalists making an almighty racket & fighting over who could make the most noise. Tito’s vocals often find themselves struggling to stay afloat above the raucous cacophony that’s surrounding them & I can’t help but think that “Shark Attack” could have made a significantly bigger impact under the guidance of a decent producer.

Wehrmacht may only have been young but they certainly knew what they what they wanted to achieve & that was to be the fastest band that’s ever existed. And fuck me if they haven’t achieved that goal here because I can’t think of a single release to rival it for sheer, unbridled velocity. These chaps go absolutely flat-chat with their pedals to the metal pretty much 100% of the time so I wouldn’t go into “Shark Attack” expecting too much nuance or variation. In truth, they do lose a bit of the musicality in their song-writing in the process but every subgenre of metal has its time & place & the crossover thrash & thrashcore subgenres were never created for in-depth analysis & drawn-out emotional exploration. They’re about getting drunk, having a few laughs & thrashing out like a bastard & Wehrmacht certainly achieve that.

Musically, there are a couple of different sides to Wehrmacht's sound with thrash metal & hardcore punk continually playing off against each other. The thrashier side of the band sounds a great deal like “Darkness Descends”-era Dark Angel with front man Tito coming across a lot like Dark Angel singer Don Doty. I quite like his style but he can tail off a little bit during those times when he starts to get drowned out by the instrumentalists. The rest of the band concentrate all of their energy on playing as fast as is humanly possible & this comes at the expense of precision. The performances here are pretty sloppy for the most part & it sounds a lot like a live-in-the-studio affair. This is another area where a good producer could have made a major difference in my opinion. I mean the guitars aren’t even completely in tune with each other during some of the key melodic moments.

Wehrmacht’s riffs are played with an unbelievable amount of urgency & ferocity with inspiration being drawn from bands like Cryptic Slaughter & DRI as far as pure speed goes. The twin guitar attack even trade high intensity Slayer-style solos which are some of the highlights of the album in my opinion. Drummer Brian Lehfeldt (who later went on to play with Cryptic Slaughter & commercially successful alternative rockers Everclear) must have been one tired dude after these sessions because he absolutely fucking destroys his kit. He was very fast for the time & his consistent use of blast beats makes for a particularly brutal listening experience. It is worth noting that if you listen closely you can hear the guitarists struggling to keep in time with him on more than the odd occasion though. In fact, there are various stages where things start to go to mush but somehow the raw energy in Wehrmacht’s delivery seems to make this significantly less important than it might be with a more sophisticated thrash outfit.

The opening title track is an absolute belter in the vein of Dark Angel & is the clear album highlight. It’s sheer attitude & outrageous speed manage to overcome a humorous attempt at emulating the theme from Jaws in guitar form which ends up creating a build-up that reminds me of the beginning of the Bathory classic “Equimanthorn”. Weeelll…. a poor man’s version to be fair. Unfortunately this is not the only attempt at humour on the album though. Wehrmacht never take themselves too seriously & there are a few intrusive melodic concepts explored that see the band heading in strange directions with unusual circus-style melodies sometimes appearing, presumably for pure comic value. I can’t say that I’m too keen on this sort of humour in my metal & I’m especially not a fan of hearing a recording of dude throwing up in front of his overly enthusiastic mates which is what we’re subjected to at the end of “United Shoe Brothers” (which also seems to rip off the chorus phrasing from Overkill’s “Rotten To The Core” just quietly).  

Overall though, it’s hard not to like “Shark Attack”. Sure there are four or five duds included & the production isn’t wonderful but the youthful enthusiasm & incredibly high velocities that drive this music offer quite a bit of appeal for an audience that’s not looking for a long-term fix & are much more inclined towards a quick-fire solution to their drunken party needs. And besides…. If you can find me a faster metal record than this one I’ll be very damn impressed.

For fans of: Cryptic Slaughter, DRI, “Darkness Descends”-era Dark Angel.

By the mid-to-late 1980's, the Brazilian city of Belo Horizante had become a small hub of activity for young bands with an appetite for increasingly extreme music; presumably being encouraged by 1985’s split album from local heroes Sepultura & Overdose as well as Sepultura’s 1986 full-length debut “Morbid Visions”. This would see 1987 becoming an important year in the development of the local scene with the next wave of bands graduating to full release status in quick succession. Amongst the pack were several key performers in Sarcofago, Mutilator, Chakal, Exterminator & the subject of today’s review, Holocausto. 

So ya know the old phrase that says that you can’t judge a book by its cover? Well it’s fucking lucky that this is generally accepted to be the case because I don’t imagine the cover art for Holocausto’s debut studio album “Campo de exterminio” would instill too much confidence within the context of a modern metal marketplace now, would it? I mean deciding you’ll go with that sort of moniker & then calling your record “Extermination Camp” & putting a picture of a Nazi soldier setting a vicious dog onto a naked & clearly emaciated civilian isn’t exactly something that people would commonly accept these days now, is it? Not to mention the two-minute intro track which samples historical Nazi recordings. But in a way it was a fine representation of just how few fucks Brazil’s extreme metal underground gave back in the 80’s. There didn’t seem to be any rules whatsoever & that is very well illustrated by the music this sleeve contains within too. 

Now any Brazilian extreme metal release simply MUST possess a couple of key attributes & the first is a production job that sounds like it was recorded with a handheld Dictaphone & this is certainly true with “Campo de exterminio” but perhaps not to the extent that people seem to make out. Maybe it’s just that I’m revisiting this release through the digitally remastered version that’s available on Spotify (which also includes the bonus track “Massacre” which seems to be a precursor for the war metal subgenre) but I can’t say that I find it terribly easy to match up the online consensus that this is amongst the worst of the worst with the product that’s reached my ears this week. Sure, it’s raw as hell & sounds like a cheap demo tape but it’s not unlistenable by any stretch of the imagination. As is quite often the case with Brazilian death/thrash, the guitars are mixed too low & the drums do their very best to drown out the rest of the instruments but I find that I can make out the riffs most of the time & that’s no mean feat given the messy guitar sound. I mean if there’s one element that gives “Campe de exterminio” its necro feel it’s that ultra-ugly guitar tone which ensures that it’s pretty much impossible for single axeman Valério "Exterminator" to present the results of his toil in anything close to a tidy fashion. If you’ve already conquered the guitar tone on the early Hellhammer & Sodom recordings & are looking for your next challenge then perhaps this might be just the sort of thing you’re looking for i.e. a rhythm guitar tone that would see even the most skilled champions of their instrument struggling to lay down even the slightest hint at complexity.

The second key characteristic of any underground Brazilian death/thrash metal release is a very basic level of musicianship & once again “Campo de exterminio” is often highlighted as being on the more extreme end of the spectrum in this regard. Look I’m not saying that it’s not warranted but perhaps not for the same reasons as most people seem to think. I mean unlike Belo Horizante locals Exterminator, Holocausto do have the physical skills to perform at a reasonable level but this is often obscured by the fact that they appear to have received absolutely no theoretical training. To elaborate a bit on that point, the drum beats employed by Armando "Nuclear Soldier" are reasonably performed & are generally quite powerful however the riffs that they’re accompanying often have no correlation to them whatsoever so you’ll regularly find yourself wondering how the band members ever thought they’d work together. There’s probably not a song on the tracklisting that doesn’t include a riff that makes no sense from a rhythmic point of view & despite coming up with some pretty brutal riffs at times, it's very clear that Valério has never been taught how to count his beats through in his head. It’s actually a miracle that the whole thing doesn’t fall into complete mush a lot more than it does & it’s often up to front man Rodrigo "Führer" to help keep the rhythm of the riffs together through the use of his phrasing. In fact, I’m not even sure how he manages to stay in time himself to be honest so it’s a significant problem that’s been majorly impacted on by the muddy guitar tone which makes it almost impossible to produce a precise performance. Valério’s incompetent use of palm-muting is also a contributing factor though it must be said & it’s left up to Armando to try to hide his deficiencies. 

“Campo de exterminio” is generally regarded as sitting somewhere between thrash metal & death metal however I’d argue that this is a legitimate death metal release with Holocausto’s sound being an amalgamation of Sarcofago, early Sepultura & the first couple of Sodom releases. Despite what you may read, there’s not many references to black metal included although the slower sections were almost certainly inspired by Hellhammer & there’s a noticeable hardcore punk streak to a lot of the more brutal tracks included. I think there’s really only one track where I find Holocausto working from a predominantly thrash metal palate (see “Vietna”) with the rest of the tracklisting sporting blast beats, death grunts & frantic tremolo-picked solos. The grim death metal atmosphere is definitely there & that’s the main source of appeal for an old school death metal fanatic like myself. In fact, it makes me really try hard to like this record even when the obstacles are blaringly obvious. Armando’s vocal delivery is a definite positive though & I really enjoy what was a particularly brutal performance for the time with the obvious reference point being the early efforts of Sepultura’s Max Cavalera. Armando’s holocaust-related lyrical themes are not exactly your standard grisly gore-ridden death metal fodder however they’re delivered in Portuguese so I don’t understand them &, given the subject matter, perhaps it’s better that way anyway. 

To be honest, I can’t help but be a little disappointed that I haven’t been able to get myself over the line with “Campo de exterminio”. Given my background, I would have thought I was as likely as anyone to be able to get into this ultra-raw & super-primitive South American stuff but the lack of structure & cohesion in the riffs has proven to be too great an obstacle for me so I only end up enjoying about half of the tracklisting. Still… I’d take this record over the Exterminator, Vulcano & Chakal’s releases from the same period so it isn’t the worst example of Brazilian extreme metal I’ve ever heard but my lack of enthusiasm for it has meant that I’ve never considered checking out Holocausto’s other albums & that’s unlikely to change any time soon. 

For fans of: Sarcofago, Vulcano & the first couple of Sepultura releases.

I got on the Pig Destroyer train a little bit late to be honest. The Washington grindcore outfit began their recording career at a time when I was starting to temporarily lose interest in the metal scene & it wasn’t until 2009 that this delightful piece of blasting insanity would grace my ears but it made an immediate & lasting impression. Grindcore & I have had our moments over the years to be honest. I tend to find that for every energized burst of pure aggression comes a generic & artistically unambitious release of little consequence but when I hit on a gooden I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it & “Terrifyer” fits into this category very confortably. 

For me, it’s always important that regardless of how brutal a band might be or how raw a sound they might be aiming for production-wise, I still want to be able to make out the nuances in order to give myself the chance to become physically involved with the riffs. And Pig Destroyer have done a fantastic job at achieving that here with the guitars & drums seemingly leaping out of the speakers, grabbing you by the hair & bludgeoning your cranium with a force somewhat akin to a sledgehammer. The rhythm guitars are right in your face & have an abrasive yet vibrant tone that’s chock full of life. They also possess enough weight to remove the need for a bass guitar. That’s right! Upon first listen I remember trying really hard to identify the bass lines but found that I couldn’t pick them up for the life of me. It wasn’t until I did a little bit of googling that I realized that Pig Destroyer don’t actually have a bass player at all. On the evidence of this record though, I can see why they didn’t bother with one as it’s simply not required. The layering of Scott Hull’s guitar crunch & the sheer athleticism of drummer Brian Harvey seems to fill out the sound adequately enough. I really love Brian’s drum sound actually. There’s so much electricity on his cymbal work & the blast beats are commanding & authoritative without ever becoming overly dominating. This is what a grindcore record should sound like in my opinion. It’s brutal for sure… but there’s an overall professionalism about it too. 

Some of that is undoubtedly due to the impressive musicianship of the two instrumentalists. Agoraphobic Nosebleed mastermind & former Anal Cunt guitarist Hull was clearly a well-seasoned veteran by this stage in his career & it’s very evident in his execution. The benefits of having a single rhythm guitarist performing multiple layers of tracks is clear as day on “Terrifyer” as it results in a very tight & focused delivery of the riffs. And wow! There are some serious riffs on offer here. Scott doesn’t ever dwell on the one thing for two long & despite the short duration of most of these pieces you’ll find that they contain as many riffs as most traditional metal bands can fit into a track that’s two or three times as long. The constant changing is a major contributor to the feeling of urgency that Pig Destroyer achieve & this wouldn’t have been possible without a class drummer of the caliber of Harvey. In fact, despite Hull’s riff-fest, Brian’s actually the best thing about “Terrifyer”. I find myself spending a lot of the album immersing myself in his interesting drum fills & precision blast beats. You won’t find too many better grindcore drummers to be honest. At least not for this particular band. 

Stylistically, you’ll be left with little doubt that Pig Destroyer are a grindcore band but that’s not to say that “Terrifyer” swims only in that particular pool. Hull’s riffs showcase a variety of influences & I often find myself imagining that he’s been taking a peak at Machine Head’s groove metal playbook or is trying to emulate Cannibal Corpse’s techy half-time death metal assault. Often in the same one minute song too! And it’s ultimately the quality of these riffs that makes “Terrifyer” so appealing. There’s a genuine groove that the band locks into very regularly with the musical visions of Hull & Harvey seemingly being completely in tune & while these moments may seem fleeting at the time, it’s never long until you’re back there once again. Sure there are some more generic & less ambitious thrash & hardcore style riffs employed here & there but they never stay around for too long & are usually replaced by something a lot more exciting so I couldn’t say that there’s a single track included in the 21 of offer that doesn’t give me some sort of enjoyment. The short 32 minute album run time doesn’t leave any room for boredom either. 

If there’s a weakness in Pig Destroyer’s sound, it’s the fairly monotonous shrieking of former Agoraphobic Nosebleed vocalist J.R. Hayes. Most grindcore bands go for a more varied vocal delivery than J.R. delivers here & you can see why too. Hayes spends the entire album screaming his fucking head off & I’m gonna have to give him an A for effort but it would have been good to get a few more attempts at variety. Fans of metalcore certainly won’t find themselves feeling alienated as Hayes would sound right at home on a Converge record but I can’t say that this really fits into my musical comfort zone if I’m honest. In fact, if I look at my score here, there’s a reasonable chance that I may have scored “Terrifyer” slightly higher had the vocals slanted a little closer to my preferred taste palate but that’s not to say that I find myself cringing or anything so this is just an observation more than a major criticism. 

Overall, I think Pig Destroyer have delivered a top class grindcore record here. It’s blasting yet classy, abrasive yet professional, complex yet accessible. Grindcore may not be high on my list of extreme metal subgenres but “Terrifyer” may just sit at the top of the pile these days. Perhaps even usurping my beloved Terrorizer in the process. One thing’s for sure… if you’re a fan of the genre then you’re gonna love this shit. Play it very loud & only when you’re doing something physical. Otherwise you may just make a dick of yourself on the train or at church. 

For fans of: Napalm Death, Brutal Truth, Nails 

2007's final release from Georgia-based US drone metallers The Angelic Process has always been a challenge for me. Whilst "Weighing Souls With Sand" has been universally claimed as a classic by the rest of the world, it's never sat completely comfortably with me for a number of reasons. Some of its defining characteristics represent significant obstacles for me & it's taken me just over a decade to be able to reach a level of acceptance.

For starters, The Angelic Process' material is based around several common elements with each track offering lush ambient sections interspersed with dinosauric walls of abrasive noise that seem hell bent on averting the listeners attention from some apparently sweet melodic content. Tracks often start & finish with a gorgeous sweeping ambience that reminds me of German ambient techno maestro Gas before the heavy guitars kick in & the musical soundscape changes extremely rapidly into one that sees the listeners head being continually belted with an unparalleled sonic barrage. There are moments when I fear that my eardrums simply can't tolerate any more noise & I find myself literally cringing to protect myself. But at the same time there's this unusual beauty sitting in the background that seems to be being intentionally masked by layers of analog fuzz. 

The vocals of Monica Henson leap between innocent but soaring melodies & the sort of screams that cause me to wonder if she'll ever speak again. It's really pretty hard to tell if that's being achieved mainly by production trickery or not but I suspect it is. The riffs of her partner in crime Kris Angylus are very simplistic but the brutal & at times overwhelming production job sees them packing a punch that is sure to induce migraines in many listeners. If I'm honest I don't really enjoy the ultra-fuzzy guitar sound. It's not my bag at all. But it's the quality of the melodies that lurk beneath the surface of this abomination that draw The Angelic Process' audience deep into the hazy mist of their sound with the end result being that many people get lost & never want to return home again. The drums sound like they're programmed to my ears & I feel that this was an area that could have been improved as they sound a little bit artificial when the rest of the music around them is trying so hard to portray a warm analogue feel.

"Weighing Souls With Sand" is most commonly referred to as drone metal. I can see why but it's never seemed to me to be a very accurate label to be honest. There's a lot more going on here than there is in your average drone metal release, particularly from a melodic point of view. The noisy analogue hiss that shrouds most tracks reminds me a lot of the noisier works of ambient artist Tim Hecker while the huge crescendos indicate a love for post-rock artists such as Sigur Ros. There is most definitely a shoegaze element at play here too with a lot of these tracks seeing Kris strumming open downstrokes repeatedly in a melancholic fashion that reeks of My Bloody Valentine's classic "Loveless" album. The droning bass notes take my mind more towards the ambient variety of drone only more from a textural point of view than a stylistic one. Overall I find that the post-metal tag is the more appropriate way to label the album & I'd feel much more comfortable if "Weighing Souls With Sand" was separated from the drone metal charts as it inevitably fairs quite well but doesn't sound anything like the records scattered around it.

It's taken a very long time & many revisits to achieve but I'm only just now starting to see the value in The Angelic Process' piece de resistance. It nicely portrays its theme of the death of a partner with the instrumentation always possessing a melancholic grandeur that seems both sad & enlightened at the same time. It's simply heart-breaking to think that Kris made the storyline into a self-fulfilling prophecy when he took his own life the following year after falling into a deep depression following a severe hand injury that prevented him from playing guitar any more. Unlike my initial attempts with this album, I actually think I get some enjoyment out of every track now whereas I struggled to sit through it a few years back. I'm glad I've finally come round but there's still a limit to how much "Weighing Souls With Sand" ever has the potential to captivate me. I think I respect what it's trying to do more than I actually enjoy the result. It's certainly an experience that you won't forget in a hurry but it's also a very repetitive one with the same tools being used in every song. The Angelic Process are indeed a one-trick pony. It's just that no one else has even tried to perform that trick before. That's the appeal of a record like this one. You'll be sitting so far outside of your comfort zone that it's easy to forget you even had one.

The thrash metal movement was fairly quick to plant its roots in Canada following its explosion onto the scene in 1983. Voivod & Razor would burst out of the blocks the following year but in truth the first couple of releases from both bands sported a sound that had much more in common with speed metal than it did with genuine thrash. Fans of a more pure thrash sound would have to wait until 1985 when a small underground scene would develop in the city of Toronto; one that would see crossover bands like Slaughter & Sudden Impact & speed metal merchants like PileDriver competing in the race for the highest velocities yet achieved by a Canadian metal band. And it was this environment that would spawn the debut studio album from five-piece thrash outfit Sacrifice; a record that would take a more focused approach to the subgenre than we’d heard from the Canadians previously & one that had much more in common with the more aggressive US bands of the time than it did with the bands that surrounded them. 

The first thing you’ll notice about 1985’s “Torment In Fire” album is the awful production. It’s extremely noisy with the guitars sounding very messy & the cymbals receiving an undue amount of high end which leaves the overall result sounding very crashy indeed. Thankfully though, the style of music this record pushes on its audience isn’t all that bothered by such aesthetic trivialities with the band showing very little care for subtlety & producing a raw & energized beast of an album that makes up for any lack of nuance through fire & brimstone. Any nu-school metalheads out there beware though. If you’re not already accustomed to the sound of underground extreme metal from the mid-80’s then you might struggle with this one. 

Instrumentally, Sacrifice aren’t the most talented bunch of musicians you’ve ever heard in your life but they don’t let that hold them back from achieving their desired result; a result that would appear to be to produce a reasonably high quality emulation of their idols if I’m not completely mistaken. I mean these guys were only in their late teenage years at this stage but they’d clearly been extremely diligent in their analysis of what it takes to produce compelling thrash metal because they make a very good fist of it here. There is certainly a case for claiming the regular use of plagiarism but in this case it fits into the category of helping you to revisit some of the great metal experiences of your lifetime rather than tarnishing anyone’s legacy. Slayer are clearly the most obvious recipient of Sacrifice’s worship as almost every song on the tracklisting is overflowing with elements that span the entire course of the Slayer back catalogue. Even the lead guitar tone & performances are decent emulations of Kerry King & Jeff Hannemann at their most chaotic while the drumming of Gus Pynn is filled to the brim with Dave Lombardo-isms. There are even a couple of particularly violent sub-two minute hardcore punk numbers towards the end of the record that wouldn’t have sounded out of place alongside Slayer’s more brief excursions (like “Necrophobic” for example). Given that Slayer are my all-time favourite metal band, I was always destined to find the positive in all of this rather than sulking about how Sacrifice were ripping off my idols. I mean I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t crave more of that classic Slayer sound in my life even after all these years. 

The vocals of guitar-slinging front man Rob Urbinati are a real focal point for the band too. Rob does a great job in delivering a performance that sees him comfortably sitting in both the traditional grunty thrash camp as well as the more extreme & overthetop proto-death metal one that housed the likes of Possessed & the Teutonic thrash bands. His screams are particularly searing & there’s rarely a moment where Rob holds anything back. This attribute was clearly never going to allow Sacrifice to become a household name but I find that adds a little extra appeal if I’m honest. The metal-as-fuck attitude is a real drawcard for me. 

The tracklisting isn’t without its blemishes however. The opening intro track “The Awakening” does a pretty poor job of trying to sound scary. There’s a definite lack of maturity in its execution & it ends up sounding like something some pre-pubescent boys threw together on a late-night sleepover. The simple & slightly out of tune mid-paced chugging of “Homicidal Breath” is also lacking in class & falls a little flat but apart from those two duds the rest of the record is generally pretty consistent with the B-side being particularly strong. In actual fact, I think there could have been one or two genuine thrash anthems here if not for the previously mentioned production issues which definitely limits the level of appeal “Torment In Fire” is able to offer. For this reason, it’s hard to pick out any obvious standout tracks from this lot. Instead we get a bunch of tunes that are generally very enjoyable but never quite reach the tipping point to become genuinely great. 

I’m a big fan of “Torment In Fire” overall. It’s the sort of underground metal album that old tape traders like myself can really relate to & that we see far too rarely these days. At least not with the same level of authenticity that we see here. Don’t expect anything too original but fans of Slayer, Kreator & “Beyond The Gates”-era Possessed should really dig this. 

1984 was a huge year for Slayer fans. Not only did we receive the classic "Haunting The Chapel" E.P., but Metal Blade Records also felt the need to put a live release out to showcase the sheer violence & electricity of a live Slayer show. It would be recorded in New York City but as with Warlord’s “And The Cannons Of Destruction Have Begun…” live album they'd released only a month earlier, Metal Blade had unusual ideas on how it would come together, not feeling any necessity for the record to reflect a truly live club show. The Warlord record was advertised as having been recorded in an empty theatre & was billed as the very first Warlord live show which ended up being completely inaccurate as it eventually came out that the whole thing was put together in a recording studio & was poorly mimed for the accompanying video that came with the album. Well the circumstances around the recording of Slayer’s “Live Undead” E.P. have a few more unknowns about them & it’s really up to the listener as to how much they let these effect their overall enjoyment of the record.

For starters, we know that this isn’t a legitimate live show. The band’s management have been open for many years about the fact that it was recorded in a studio with 50 friends of the band in attendance to add the audience noise. But what’s not 100% clear is whether that audience was in the same room at the same time that Slayer performed this material or whether they were simply screaming their heads off for the fun of it & inserted at a later stage. From the hints that producer Bill Metoyer has given in interviews it sounds like he wants us to believe that the crowd were in the room with the band but the audience noise didn’t get picked up well enough in the recording so it was re-recorded & pasted over the top of the band. This makes sense to me on the evidence on display on the recording so I’m gonna go with that story & I’d imagine that our audience will be a little divided about whether they can accept this as a genuinely live recording under those circumstances or not.

The other major talking point is the necessity to put out a live release at all given that Slayer had such a small amount of material at the time. I mean the original release of “Live Undead” featured six songs; five of which appeared on their debut full-length “Show No Mercy” from the previous year & the other one having seen the light of day only two months earlier with the “Haunting The Chapel” EP. And when you take into account the fact that these arrangements are all very similar to the originals & recorded in a studio it begs the question on what the point of the whole exercise was. Apparently the six songs that made it to the record were selected from 19 that were recorded in total across three sets that included a maximum of nine different songs with the tracklisting being completely out of order from their usual live sets.

Well……. now that we’ve got that all out of the way, it’s lucky for me that I’m able to see past all of those topics pretty easily & I subsequently  find “Live Undead” to possess some unique characteristics that make it an essential part of any Slayer fanatics collection. One of the bigs pluses is that the production is excellent for a "live" release. It really showcases the electric energy of a live Slayer with all of the instruments being well defined. The two guitarists sit at either side of the stereo spectrum & achieve tones that are both raw & chaotic & searing & modern at the same time, with the solos being presented in emphatic fashion. Tom’s bass guitar can actually be heard which is more than I can say for many Slayer studio outings & he sounds thick of warm here. And Dave Lombardo’s drum kit sounds more powerful than we’ve heard from him to date with a kick drum sound that went a long way to defining the path forwards for extreme metal. There’s more click to it than we'd heard previously which makes it more defined & gives the rhythms more precision. In fact, Lombardo’s performance is a big differentiator for “Live Undead”. His ability behind the kit at this stage in the game is simply light-years ahead of where it was for “Show No Mercy” & this gives these songs more life than they had previously. Particularly due to the drastically improved double kick work which is a real highlight & gives the songs a lot more urgency than they had previously.

The only “Haunting The Chapel” track included is “Captor Of Sin” & it benefits greatly from the cleaner production afforded over the original recording. Tom’s vocals are harsher & more evil sounding than they were on “Show No Mercy” & you would honestly never know that this wasn’t a real live club gig on the evidence of his performance as he genuinely seems to be interacting with the crowd. I actually think this performance places him way ahead of the rest of the thrash front men metal fans had experienced to the time. His ability to balance sheer aggression with melody is unparalleled & his between-song banter is totally bad-ass & would definitely leave a live crowd riled up & ready to attack each other. The sound of the audience certainly leaves you feeling like they actually do too. These dudes sound like complete psychos throughout the recording & that’s pretty much in line with what my teenage self always imagined from a Slayer club crowd. If you want to hear what Hell sounds like then this is as close as you’re gonna get with the audience being mixed a little louder than you’d usually expect for a live release which seems to be a bit of bug-bear for some listeners but personally I really enjoy it & think it gives the E.P. a unique character.

Perhaps the fact that I was introduced to “Live Undead” before I’d ever heard “Show No Mercy” or “Haunting The Chapel” has had an impact on my overall feelings on this release but I have to say that I fucking love it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it just slightly eclipses “Haunting The Chapel” for my favourite Slayer release to the time. I honestly couldn’t give a fuck about how the recording came to be. I didn’t have any idea of those circumstances when I first became acquainted with “Live Undead” & I’m not sure it would have made a difference anyway. I just base my judgements on the music coming from those speakers & the way it makes me feel & on that basis alone it’s hard to deny that “Live Undead” is a showcase for the elite thrash metal of one of the greats of the genre when they were just hitting their straps. I’ll never get the opportunity to see them at this early stage of their career but this E.P. serves as a very nice insight into what a live Slayer experience might have been like at that point in time.

Motorhead’s “The Golden Years: Live” E.P. is a relatively unknown four-track live E.P. featuring recordings from their 1980 European tour. It includes renditions of the old Motown track “Leaving Here” which they’d previously covered on their initial studio album “On Parole”, “Stone Dead Forever” & “Dead Men Tell No Tales” from their classic “Bomber” record & the heavily underrated “Too Late Too Late”; an exceptionally strong B-side from the “Overkill” single which had been criminally overlooked for album inclusion. This release paints the perfect picture of Motorhead in all their glory, warts & all. Lemmy sounds grindier & nastier than ever before with a performance that highlights his abilities as a master showman. His vocals are a little soft on “Leaving Here” but this issue is rectified for the remaining tracks. That dirty yet powerful bass sound makes it perfectly obvious as to why Motorhead don’t need a second guitarist as Lemmy doesn’t need any assistance in filling out the sound beneath Eddie’s impressive guitar solos. In fact, the guitars are huge on this recording & take songs like “Leaving Here” & “Too Late Too Late” (my personal favourite) to another level from their studio counterparts. I really enjoy this E.P. & would thoroughly recommend it to any Motorhead fans out there.

I came into "The Work Which Transforms God" having never heard Blut Aus Nord before. My brother & I made a deal that he would review an album of my choice if I did one of his & this was what he chose. I had no idea of what to expect although I'd seen plenty written about the originality & weirdness of this band. But after giving it a few listens I am really glad I gave this a go because most of it is nothing short of genius.   

The album opens with one of three dark ambient tracks spread across the album ("End", "The Fall" & "Devil Essence"). These are really effective & fit in nicely with the overall feel of the album. If anything they enhance the already crushingly dark atmosphere & I could see these pieces sitting comfortably on a "Silent Hill" video game soundtrack.   

"The Choir Of The Dead" opens the flood gates & the intensity pours out. I haven't experienced a truly evil black metal atmosphere like this in quite a while. I would describe it as combining the cold, primitive majesty of "Det Som Engang Var"-period Burzum with the experimental beauty of Ved Buens Ende. One of the many highlights, it ends with some chilling church bells. "Axis" continues the black metal onslaught in fine fashion with some serious blastbeats & loads of twisted riffs. It leads into "Metamorphosis" which settles into a more progressive Ved Buens Ende-style sound that is both truly beautiful & very heavy at the same time.   

Unfortunately "The Supreme Abstract" is the only real let-down of the album. It is just too twisted, dissonant & messy for my taste. Vocally it sounds like they've gone for an Attila Csihar (Mayhem) moany groany sort of thing but it hasn't worked & doesn't suit the blasting music behind it in my opinion.  It just doesn't gel like the rest of the album & it's probably the only thing stopping a five star rating. "Our Blessed Frozen Cells" hits straight back though with a slower, deeper atmosphere that again brings to mind Burzum & also introduces a more industrial Godflesh-like drum style which can be heard on & off throughout "The Work Which Transforms God". After a dark ambient interlude mid-track it sweeps into atmospheric sludge/doom territory with soaring guitar melodies that are quite uplifting.   

The intro riff from "The Howling Of God" strongly reminds me of "Transylvanian Hunger"-period Darkthrone which can never be a bad thing in my opinion. There are lots more industrial elements on show here too which are both dissonant & unsettling as well as captivating. Godflesh again comes to mind in the drum loops. "Inner Mental Cage" is truly bizarre & amazing. There is a definite druggy, psychadelic feel & a wall of sound that engulfs the listener as they descend slowly into Hell. It is probably the highlight of the album & will continue to intrigue me for some time yet. Truly original & beautiful! Finally the album ends with a gargantuan mammoth of a doom/sludge epic in "Procession Of The Dead Clowns" with effects-drenched guitar melodies demanding your attention. Immeasurably powerful stuff & a marvelous way to close out the album! 

 Overall I was blown away by the focus & depth of "The Work Which Transforms God". There is plenty of variety & the album flows surprisingly well when you consider the amount of territory it covers. There is also plenty of variation in the vocaleft me wanting more. I totally recommend this to all open-minded metalheads who don't mind a shudderingly dark atmosphere & a head-fuck or two.

Rage Against The Machine’s sophomore album “Evil Empire” was a bit of a disappointment for me. Their self-titled debut had been an impressive release from a band with a fresh, well-defined sound. A band that obviously had a lot to say & presented their message with an in-your-face delivery that was hard to ignore. Unfortunately the follow-up failed to capitalize on the solid platform they’d built for themselves. It was lacking a bit of bottom end in the production & the song-writing was pretty inconsistent. They’d tried a few things to add some variation to their sound but these experiments had some mixed results & the best parts of the album ended up being the tracks where they just concentrated on doing what they do best. Before giving it my first listen I was thinking to myself that RATM’s third album “The Battle of Los Angeles” could go two ways. They could either put out a safe album in the style of the debut or they could try some more variation & hope for some more successful results.  

Shortly after pressing play it becomes obvious that the production is significantly better than that of “Evil Empire”. In fact “The Battle of Los Angeles” sounds very much like the debut. This gives the rhythm section a lot more clout & makes for a generally heavier experience. Secondly, the style of the song-writing sits very much within their comfort zone. There isn’t as much variety as there was on “Evil Empire”. The riffs & structures here are very familiar, Tom Morello is still taking his guitar “solos” to the weirdest places he can possibly come up with & Zack de la Rocha is spitting out his lyrics in his typical aggressive fashion. But this is not necessarily such a bad thing. If you liked the debut album then you should also get some enjoyment out of this one as they follow very similar paths.  

If you look at the individual tracks on offer here you can’t see any obviously weaker songs. In fact I’d go so far as to say that this is Rage Against The Machine’s most consistent record. “Born Of A Broken Man” is clearly the high point of the album in my opinion. It’s a real monster of a track & is amongst the best couple of songs the band ever wrote for mine. “Calm Like A Bomb” is also a standout. The rest of the tracks are generally solid & engaging. They’re quite heavy & possess plenty of energy. It’s just that by the end of the record they’re all starting to sound a little samey & for this reason “The Battle Of Los Angeles” can feel a bit longer than it actually is. It definitely doesn’t have as many highlights as the debut album either.

I quite like this record & think it’s a pretty good comeback after the disappointment of “Evil Empire”. If you look at it on an individual track-by-track basis it’s actually not too far behind the debut album in terms of overall quality but the fact that it loses a bit of momentum late in the album due to a lack of variation causes me to rate it a little lower. Still… I’m much happier with RATM going with what they do best rather than throwing in outside influences that only end up diluting the aspects of their sound that make them great. It was probably a wise decision for them to leave on this note. Another similar release would definitely have been overkill. 

"The New Order" saw Testament taking on a fresh new sound which included a growing reliance on melody & a more mature approach to song-writing. There are still plenty of the energetic thrash riffs that made "The Legacy" so appealing but the numerous acoustic sections & extra melodic content accentuate the heavier moments which gives them greater significance. Alex Skolnick's guitar solos are the clear highlight here & they lifted him to legendary status with me as a budding young shredder. His ability to create truly memorable lead solos without compromising on the technical wizardry was mind-blowing. Greg Christian's bass performance has plenty of energy & should not be overlooked either. He reminds a lot of Anthrax's Frank Bello at times while Chuck Billy's vocal display is top notch. Unfortunately there are some negatives to speak of though. The production is well short of the mark (especially in the rhythm guitar department) & this removes any chance "The New Order" had of reaching true thrash classic status with me personally. Louie Clemente's drumming is also pretty basic which leaves much of the material feeling like there's some untapped potential that could have been uncovered with a more adventurous & exciting approach.  

As for the songs themselves, we have a pretty consistent record overall. The Aerosmith cover "Nobodys Fault" is the clear weak point & sounds more like Skid Row than a thrash band. It should certainly have been omitted as it's simply not at the same standard as the originals but I think the rest of the material is very solid. Of the proper songs my highlights include the title track, "Disciples Of the Watch" & "Into The Pit" but the real highlight for me is two-minute instrumental "Hypnosis" which shows Skolnick's lead guitar skills at their absolute best. It's a soaring & highly emotive performance that easily manages to overcome the production issues that hold back the rest of the album (which is partly due to it's lack of rhythm guitars in all honesty).

Overall, "The New Order" is a quality thrash metal album that had the potential to be a real classic with a bit more care in the production department. It's certainly a worthy follow-up to Testament's more widely celebrated debut which has a slight of edge over it's younger sibling with me these days thanks to its raw & aggressive tone. 

For fans of Metaliica, Exodus & Death Angel.

Those readers that are regular contributors to the Metal Academy website would likely have witnessed my recent indulgence in the back catalogue of a relatively unknown Melbourne hardcore punk band from the mid-to-late 1980's by the name of Depression over the last couple of months & have wondered what all the fuss was about. Well, the truth is that I've been taken aback by my discovery that there is a lot more to Depression's legacy than I'd given them credit for back in the day. You see, I only ever familiarized myself with Depression's final studio effort "Thrash Till Death: Studio Tapes" in my youth, trusting the consensus that the remainder of their discography stayed predominantly within the constraints of the hardcore punk sound. The reality is a bit different to that though & I've actually found a lot more that would be of interest to your average metalhead than I'd bargained for. In fact, I've uncovered the true roots of the Australian extreme metal scene along the way with 1985's "Australia, Australia" E.P. being the very first thrash-based release to be recorded in this country in my opinion. It's been a really interesting journey & one that I've found to be universally rewarding too but I've purposely left "Thrash Till Death: Studio Tapes" to the end, electing to take a chronological path through Depression's back catalogue in order to gain the appropriate level of context along the way. Depression's sophomore album made quite an impression on me as a kid & I've returned to it a number of times over the years as a result but I've been wondering how it might stack up against some of Depression's earlier works, particularly given that it apparently saw many of the band's longer-term fans jumping ship due to the increased focus on metal.

"Thrash Till Death: Studio Tapes" arrived a year after Depression's previous release in the excellent 1987 "Ultra Hard Core Mega Heavy Punk Metal Thrash" live album which documented the band's first live show in two years. Depression had parted ways with former vocalist Spike following the ground-breaking "Australia, Australia" E.P. & returned with a three-piece lineup fronted by talented guitarist Smeer (also of Melbourne hardcore act Gash) who first tested the waters behind the microphone on 1986's highly enjoyable "Big Brother" single. Producer Mark Woods (who was also responsible for producing Nothing Sacred's 1988 debut album "Let Us Prey") would once again oversee the recording sessions after the success of the "Ultra Hard Core Mega Heavy Punk Metal Thrash" exercise & he does a reasonable job here with the album sporting enough clarity to allow all of the instruments to be easily discerned but maintaining enough raw grit to adhere to the expected hardcore aesthetic. The guitars are vibrant & full of life while the rhythm section offers plenty of power, particularly the bass guitar of Liddy & snare drum of Dakka (Persecution) which add some driving bottom-end depth to Depression's audio assault. Smeer's vocals sit beautifully over the top with his higher-register delivery cutting through the instrumentation with great vitriol.

As with the last few Depression releases, this material is pretty much as showcase of the breadth of the band member's various influences, rarely sticking to the one subgenre for too long. Metal & punk are both well represented but on this occasion we find the metal component outweighing the punk one in around a two-to-one ratio which could perhaps explain the loss of some of Depression's more punk-oriented fans. I'm a little confused as to why those fans didn't drop off earlier though as I'd suggest that both "Australia, Australia" & "Big Brother" followed a similar musical trajectory with the crossover thrash tag being more than appropriate to encompass the sound of both of those records & I don't think "Thrash Till Death: Studio Tapes" is much more metal than those two in all honesty. It does, however, explore a few more of the various styles of metal music than Depression had touched on in the past with "Instrumental" toying with a more technically structured thrash metal sound, "Masters of the Universe" being a synth-backed heavy metal number that pays homage to the great Iron Maiden & closer "Spiritual Warrior" even reaching genuine speed metal status. The more straight-forward crossover thrash material is where the true gold can be found though with the incredible ode to heroine "Fifty Bucks" (one of my all-time favourite crossover tracks & the clear album highlight), the wonderfully short & violent "Civilisation of Destruction" & the powerful "Have a Look Around" being my picks of the bunch. As with most of Depression's back-catalogue, there are no weak moments to be found here as these guys were a class act & must have absolutely killed in a live capacity, particularly given that Smeer's guitar skills are pretty amazing for a punk. I mean, this dude can easily compete with (if not outclass) the best the local metal scene had to offer at the time. His ability to sing this stuff at the same time is pretty amazing really.

What can I tell you? This is really a case of another Depression record, another unheralded gem. I'm not sure whether my long-time affiliation with this album is seeing me holding any subconscious biases but I'm gonna suggest that this is Depression's best work & have now had to find room at the top of my Top Ten Crossover Thrash Releases of All Time list with "Thrash Till Death: Studio Tapes" managing to usurp all but Slaughter & S.O.D. at number three on my list. It's also worth noting that Depression now hold a previously unheard of THREE places in that list which makes them arguably my favourite crossover band of all time now. Wow! I never would have thought that might end up being the case when I undertook for my first casual listen to their earliest demo recordings a few months ago now. But that's why our beloved metal scene is so great now, isn't it? No matter how experienced & knowledgeable we think we've become, there's always something unexpectedly incredible around the corner to pull us out of our own arses.

For fans of D.R.I., Discharge & Municipal Waste.

Finnish black metallers Impaled Nazarene & I got off to a rip-roaring start to our relationship back in 1993. I'd been recommended their debut album "Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz..." by a close associate of mine who worked at a Sydney metal record store by the name of Rock 'n' Roll Warehouse & had subsequently purchased it blind, culminating in a very positive & enjoyable few months of beer-drinking blasphemy. The follow-up album "Ugra-Karma" achieved almost as enthusiastic a response ten months later & saw Impaled Nazarene being confidently carved into my preferred band list. It also resulted in me religiously checking out the band's work for the rest of eternity, initially through their 1991 "Taog Eht Fo Htao Eht" demo tape & 1992 "Goat Perversion" E.P., both of which I quite liked. So, needless to say that I was feeling pretty hopeful when I returned home from the shops with Impaled Nazarene's third full-length CD in two years "Suomi Finland perkele" in October 1994 but my first few listens left me a little cold if I'm being honest. I would give the album a red-hot crack over the next month or so but it failed to capture me like the first two albums did & I'd soon cast it aside as a decent but inessential inclusion in the band's back catalogue. Yesterday's revisit is the first time I've returned to "Suomi Finland perkele" since the mid-1990's & I was hopeful that my reduced level of expectation might allow me to connect with the album on a deeper level.

July 1994 would see Impaled Nazarene returning to the same recording studio that had been so successful for them with their first two records in Kemi's Tico Tico studio. The strong production job on those two releases was certainly a selling point for me & "Suomi Finland perkele" doesn't disappoint in that department either with legendary Finnish metal producer Ahti Kortelainen once again affording Impaled Nazarene a clear yet powerful black metal sound with a huge snare drum. In fact, I feel like Kortelainen's contributions to the early Impaled Nazarene records were almost as important as that of the instrumentalists to be honest as he gave the band an accessibility that they may not otherwise have achieved. There had been no lineup changes between debut album "Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz..." & third album "Suomi Finland perkele" & I feel that this could only have had a positive effect on the Impaled Nazarene's ability to naturally evolve from the battering war metal-inspired sound of their early works to a more traditional & slightly more melodic black metal sound over the course of those first few releases. The tongue-in-cheek element that was so obvious on those early releases is still very much at play on "Suomi Finland perkele" though & it once again feels like it's not intended to be taken all that seriously.

Critics of the band will likely refer to Impaled Nazarene as simplistic, one-dimensional &... well... a bit dumb... & I can certainly understand that point of view as there's not a lot of depth to a lot of their back catalogue. There is a level of creative integrity here though with the Luttinen brothers branching out from flat-chat black metal a little here & there. The melodic "Blood is Thicker Than Water" sees them taking a crack at a more atmospheric black metal sound while "Let's Fucking Die" gets its Motorhead on big-time with a pure black 'n' roll approach. Neither appeal to me much though which is fairly telling as I've always preferred the more intense & often grindcore-influenced end of the Impaled Nazarene spectrum. You get a bit of that here too but not nearly as much as we'd seen on the first two albums. With the exception of those two songs I already mentioned, the majority of the tracklisting is quite enjoyable with the fairly straight-forward "Ghettoblaster" being the only other dud. There aren't any certified classics here though & that's a major flaw with "Suomi Finland perkele". Hell, there isn't even anything that I'd suggest is crying out for playlist inclusion either to tell you the truth with the band failing to break out of the third tier on this occasion. "Steelvagina" (my personal favourite) & "Genocide" come the closest but even they only seem to achieve a mild amusement as opposed to an emphatic fist in my musical face. I dunno.... I certainly find "Suomi Finland perkele" to be a predominantly enjoyable experience but I can't say that it compares well with Impaled Nazarene's first two albums & I can completely understand why I haven't returned to it in so long as there has been a clear step down taken from past glories.

Perhaps it's simply a matter of taste as I've always favoured a darker & more intense form of extreme metal than your average metalhead but "Suami Finland perkele" seems like a slightly watered down version of the Impaled Nazarene that I so enjoyed during their early days. There's no doubt some enjoyment to be found in it if you allow yourself to overcome the tongue-in-cheek elements of the Nazarene approach but the added touch of melody doesn't work as well with these very straight forward song structures in my opinion. The blackened doom track "Quasb/The Burning" was an interesting inclusion but even then it stops short of commanding repeat listens which kinda sums up the appeal of an album like "Suomi Finland perkele". I see it as more of a supporting cast member in the feature film of Impaled Nazarene's early albums which is a bit of a shame but it's still a fun listen for those members of The North who can see past the mystical shadows of their maces & candelabras for a while.

For fans of Sadistik Exekution, Impiety & Belial.

I think it's fair to say that 1994 was pretty much the peak of the Norwegian black metal boom. That particular year spawned so many of the greatest releases for the genre which kinda makes sense when you consider that it came two years after Darkthrone & Burzum's had placed the world on notice with their seminal first-up contributions. In a fast-moving movement where live performance was not valued highly, that would prove to be just enough time for the influence of the early gods to be filtered down to other creative & ambitious musicians & to see those influences resulting in new & original sounds. The Swedes were paying close attention too & 1994 would see the likes of Marduk, Dawn, Dark Funeral, Abruptum, Sacramentum, Ophthalamia & Arckanum all having a crack at black metal glory. Amongst the Swedish scene we would find Dissection, a group that had changed the face of black metal with their 1993 debut album "The Somberlain" which had combined the genre with the melodic death metal of their homeland & it would be Dissection's notorious band leader, guitarist & front man Jon Nödtveidt that would be the creative force behind The Black, a pure black metal trio from Eskilstuna, Södermanlands län.

I noticed The Black's debut album "The Priest of Satan" on the shelves of my local record store as soon as it arrived but, given the wealth of exceptional releases that were perpetuating the fast growth the black metal genre was experiencing at the time, I steered clear of committing to it for a couple of months until a close associate of my death metal band Neuropath decided that it should be him that finally made the purchase. I would rip a copy from him right away & would give "The Priest of Satan" a few attentive listens over the next week or so. I don't recall being blown away but I do remember it being a very basic & fairly generic record that focused on the more pure end of the black metal spectrum, a sound that I've grown to value enormously in a world where every man & his dog is now trying to dilute the true essence of black metal with any number of external influences. Despite being mildly entertaining, the album failed to compete with the classic records that Burzum, Mayhem, Emperor, Darkthrone & Enslaved were dishing out at the time (which was admittedly a tough feat to accomplish) & my dubbed cassette copy of "The Priest of Satan" would quickly drift to the back of my tape trading collection. This will be my first revisit since that time, a gap of around three decades.

Recorded and mixed at Underground Studio during April/May 1993 with unknown producer Kribbe Lagerwall collaborating with drummer Make Pesonen (Eternal Darkness/Karjalan Sissit) behind the mixing desk, "The Priest of Satan" achieves a faithful rendition of the classic black metal sound. Pesonen (also known as The Black himself) had self-produced The Black's 1992 "Black Blood" demo tape so he already had some runs on the board when it came to recorded sound production. The result is an uncluttered black metal sound that doesn't try to reach too far outside of the tried & tested model that bands like Mayhem, Marduk & Darkthrone had already traversed but does it in a professional enough way to keep the listener engaged throughout. The occasional addition of atmospheric keyboards from Nödtveidt in order to break things up is most welcome but for the most part the three-piece group tend to stick to the same pathway as their highly celebrated forefathers. 

Apart from Nödtveidt & Pesonen, The Black was made up of bassist Marcus Pedersén (Crypt of Kerberos) & the trio had completed the "Black Blood" demo tape with another guitarist who went by the name of Black Demon. That individual had been dropped from the lineup by the time "The Priest of Satan" was recorded but the material had not with all seven tracks included on "Black Blood" having been revisited for the album which amounted to twelve songs at just under 39 minutes in duration. The material is extremely consistent & if you find yourself enjoying the first proper black metal song "The Book of Leviathan" then you'll likely find enjoyment in the remainder of the album as well as it doesn't stray too far from the formula showcased in the opener. In fact, it's really hard to pick out any highlights here as the album is simply so similar in terms of quality. If pushed though, I'd probably suggest that “Black Blood”, "After My Prayers" & "The Goat of Mendes" might be the most memorable inclusions for me personally. Admittedly none of them really get me going all that much because, I'm not gonna lie, The Black have produced a fairly middling record here & one that's the very definition of a 3.5-star album in that it's unanimously enjoyable but rarely all that compelling.

Nödtveidt's riffs are purposely kept very simple with only a few chords changes within the predominantly tremolo-picked assault. You should be able to pick up the basslines of Pedersén fairly easily but they generally only double to bass notes of the riffs while Pesonen's drumming alternates between some fairly basic blast-beats & some equally simple lower-tempo 4/4 beats. The blackened screams of Nödtveidt are the clear highlight of The Black's sound but even they don't sound all that dissimilar to any number of other black metal front men. As boring as all that sounds though, I can't deny that The Black pull it all off really well & rarely disappoint. Perhaps that's not too surprising given the presence of Nödtveidt but what is surprising is that one of his projects is so happy to stay within the lane of what had already been done so many times before, even back in 1994. Still, for a third-tier black metal release, you could certainly do far worse than "The Priest of Satan" as there's a clear & consistent competence in the way The Black handle themselves.

Look, if you're looking for an unheralded gem of the black metal underground then I'm not sure you'll find it here but you could also do a lot worse than "The Priest of Satan". The inclusion of a few well executed ambient sections can't hide the fact that The Black had opted for pure emulation over any attempt at creating an original take on the genre though & I'm not surprised that I haven't returned to the album over such a long period. Still... there's nothing terribly offensive to be found on this old Swedish black metal release & it ticked most of my boxes for an entertaining drive to & from work on Friday.

For fans of Armagedda, Throne of Ahaz & The Abyss.

I've been a bit of a fan of Dutch death metallers Gorefest since very early on in their recording career which has seen them becoming an artist that I've followed with keen interest throughout most of their existence. They did lose me for a period during the late 1990's when their transition towards more of a death 'n' roll sound reached its ultimate culmination but their early days as a chunky death metal band were unanimously rewarding with 1990's "Horrors in a Retarded Mind" demo tape, 1991's "Mindloss" debut album & 1992's "False" sophomore record all being pretty interesting, if not particularly essential. "False" has always been my favourite of Gorefest's studio albums but I was recently left a little disappointed when my latest revisit only resulted in a 3.5-star rating which left me wondering whether I'd overrated Gorefest a touch over the years. At that point I committed to reexamining 1994's "Erase" third album which was a record that I spent a fair bit of time with at the time of release but haven't returned to since. My memories of it were largely positive but I've always considered it to be the point in which Gorefest started their death 'n' roll transition which culminated in 1998's disappointing "Chapter 13" fifth full-length & that would perhaps explain why I haven't been so keen to return to "Erase". Regardless, I held significant hope for it going into my first listen as I remembered it being pretty solid in its own right.

"Erase" would be Gorefest's second album for the illustrious Nuclear Blast label & would see them venturing outside of the Netherlands for the recording sessions for the first time, this time choosing to record in Germany at T & T Studio in Gelsenkirchen with English producer Pete Coleman who had made a name for himself working behind the mixing desk for bands like Cancer, Demon, Discharge, Disincarnate, Napalm Death & Paradise Lost. The result is another heavy-weight death metal record with a thick down-tuned guitar tune & a bottom-heavy rhythm section. I love the bass guitar tone & the depth that's afforded to the toms & kick drum with the snare drum being really punchy, all of which works really well in support of bassist Jan-Chris de Koeijer's ultra-deep death grunts. The band lineup had remained stable from the one that recorded "False" two years earlier which is a real positive that has seen Gorefest able to continue their musical development unhindered. The guitar solos of Boudewijn Bonebakker that were arguably the low point of "False" have improved significantly here, still being fairly basic from a technical point of view but this time having much more direction & structure than they did on "False". The drumming of Ed Warby (Demiurg/Elegy/Hail of Bullets/The 11th Hour) is rock-solid too & gives the rest of the instrumentalists a beautiful platform with which to work off. He never over-plays his hand here & clearly knew the true meaning of the term "rhythm section".

Gorefest's sound definitely wasn't as deathly on "Erase" as it was on their previous work & it's easy to see why some fans may have been a little put off by the overall direction. Unlike some critics, I wouldn't say that it was a death 'n' roll record as such though. It's still a death metal release for mine but it's certainly one that showcases a fair amount of groove in its controlled & unanimously mid-paced approach. I feel that Carcass' classic 1993 fourth album "Heartwork" has played a significant role in the riff structures on "Erase" actually, not in a melodic sense but in the way they've structured their riffs, always keeping things simple & open in order to maximize the impact of the song-writing. Entombed's "Wolverine Blues" is another record that I find myself calling upon as a point of reference while the more pure groove metal riffs have me reaching for comparisons to California's Machine Head. It all works very nicely although I will say that de Koeijer's vocals don't sit as comfortably over this sound as they did over the more intense death metal of their roots which does limit the appeal of the album a touch. The more intense sections (such as the beautifully executed blast beat riff on "Peace of Paper") definitely see me perking up a lot which is an indication of where my allegiances lie but the band use those parts well in order to create climaxes within their more controlled song structures.

The tracklisting is generally pretty consistent with only the slightly clunky "I Walk My Way" failing to capture my attention. The more hard-hitting & deathly tracks tend to be the ones that grab me more than the rest with the excellent title track, the previously mentioned "Peace of Paper" & the brooding downtempo atmosphere of "Goddess in Black" being the clear standouts. The rest of the material is all pretty entertaining but rarely sees me wanting to stand up & applaud & I think that's the thing that hinders the album's chances of becoming a genuine favourite. It's all professionally written & produced but it's also fairly easy-listening when it comes to extreme metal, instead seeming to target the same sort of crossover appeal that the Carcass & Entombed records I mentioned earlier managed to gain. It does a pretty reasonable job at it too as I've bought into what its selling & that's no easy feat when it comes to my fairly extreme taste profile. But I can't deny that the heights that it's possible to take me to with this sound are limited by the very same thing that gives "Erase" the potential to break through the boundaries of the death metal audience i.e. its accessibility.

"Erase" is another decent death metal record from Gorefest but, as with all of their previous material, I still find myself falling short of claiming it as an essential one. There's no doubt that they were a well-oiled machine who knew what they were doing but they simply can't crack into that second-tier consistently enough to see me wanting to return to them very often. In saying that, I do think that "Erase" is a touch underrated because it doesn't sit all that far behind Gorefest's more obviously deathly early works in terms of quality in my opinion. I'm actually surprised that it didn't make more of a fist of cracking into more commercial metal market to be honest but I think some of that is due to de Koeijer's vocals in all honesty as they're hardly Top of the Pops stuff now, are they?

For fans of Pungent Stench, Entombed & "Heartwork"-era Carcass.

Much like my all-time favourite metal band Suffocation, Maryland brutal death metal outfit Dying Fetus represent one of those rare artists that I've followed since way back at their earliest demo tapes, a relationship that has now eclipsed three decades. The global tape trading community first brought them to my attention when I picked up a dubbed cassette copy of both of their early demo tapes (including 1993's "Bathe in Entrails" & 1994's "Infatuation With Malevolence") following some enquiries into what bands might give Suffocation a run for their money in terms of brutality. My source wasn't wrong either & Dying Fetus would go on to have an influence on the direction of my own death metal band Neuropath over the next couple of years. I remember those days fondly but I can't recall returning to either of the Dying Fetus demos until only recently when I gave "Bathe in Entrails" another look. It still offered me a fair bit of enjoyment too so I immediately positioned myself to complete this review of the compilation of the two demo cassettes.

The "Infatuation With Malevolence" CD originally contained just the ten proper death metal tracks from the two demo tapes, excluding the short instrumental "Visualize Permanent Damnation (In E Minor 440)" from the second cassette which is essentially just John Gallagher trying to show off his lead guitar skills & offers no real creative value. The sound quality is very good for this type of release which is largely down to the quality of the original recordings more than it is any post-production or mastering. The compilation was re-released in 2011 along with a slew of additional unreleased live, rehearsal & demo material as well as the inclusion of the previously mentioned instrumental piece. Both demos fall well inside the parameters of the brutal death metal sound with hints at the technicality Dying Fetus would employ later in their career already being quite evident. "Bathe in Entrails" certainly sounds more like demo tape than the second cassette does, particularly due to the poorly executed blast beats of Gallagher who was handling the drumming on top of his guitar duties in the absence of a capable skinsman. That would be improved on significantly for "Infatuation With Malevolence" with Rob Belton joining the band behind the kit. Original second guitarist Nick Speleos had also been replaced with Brian Latta joining Gallagher & bassist Jason Netherton (Misery Index) in a more polished & professional configuration of the band.

Both tapes are surprisingly brutal for the time with Suffocation obviously being the primary influence. The impact of the early Cannibal Corpse records can easily be detected in the first tape but it's less obvious on "Infatuation With Malevolence". Listening back now, it's easy to be critical of the terrible drumming of main man John Gallagher on "Bathe in Entrails" but his guitar work was very accomplished (particularly the James Murphy-ish solos which are surprisingly proficient for such a young dude) & the multiple-vocal attack is as gutteral as all fuck so it can't be all bad now, can it? It's interesting that Dying Fetus really haven't changed their sound all that much at all over the 31 years since their earliest demo recordings which says a lot about why I found it so appealing as a young fella. Dying Fetus would certainly get better though & I tend to dig their albums a bit more than this first up effort these days but I can't deny that I still get a fair bit of nostalgic enjoyment out of a good half of the six songs included. The others simply suffer a bit too much from Gallagher's inability to play double kick in time. I wouldn't say that "Infatuation With Malevolence" is exactly a step up but it is definitely better & I'd actually suggest that it's still my second favourite Dying Fetus release to this day. Their sound is generally tighter with the improved production job being pretty much in line with most proper releases to come out of the underground at the time. The dual vocal attack of Gallagher & Jason Netherton is pretty devastating but I would have appreciated a little more in the way of intelligibility from the ultra-deep delivery as it can sound like a parody it itself at times.

The tracklisting isn't without its blemishes, mainly during the "Bathe in Entrails" material which is fairly hit & miss. I can't say that "Wretched Flesh Consumption", "Vomiting the Fetal Embryo" & "Tearing Inside the Womb" do much for me these days but thankfully the other three songs are strong enough to carry that cassette. The four proper songs on "Infatuation With Malevolence" are more consistent in their quality with opener "Eviscerated Offspring" & the excellent "And the Weak Shall Be Crushed" being the clear highlights of the release in my opinion. The New York hardcore influence that would perpetuate Dying Fetus' later releases makes the odd appearance but I wouldn't say that it's as obvious as it would become in later years, even if the boys clearly already knew how to hit on a bad-assed groove riff at times. As with all Dying Fetus records, they do have a tendency to balance out the killer riffs with some fairly flat ones which has been a long-time gripe that I've held with the Fetus but boy they can be crushing when they get their slam on. In fact, their influence on the slam death metal scene is as plain as day, even on these demos.

If you're a big fan of Dying Fetus' albums then you probably need to check out "Infatuation With Malevolence" at some point, if only to satisfy your curiosity. Personally, I still quite enjoy it & would probably reach for it over some of the band's later releases like "Killing On Adrenaline" & "Wrong One To Fuck With" these days if I'm being honest. Despite always having been a great live band, it is worth noting though that Dying Fetus are very much the epitome of a 3.5-star band for me personally in that I invariably enjoy their releases but never find them to be essential listening, mainly due to the gratuitous use of technicality which adds very little of substance & sounds more like a practice exercise most of the time. That's less of an issue on "Infatuation With Malevolence" which sees it able to compare quite favourably with the band's wider discography when looking back over the more than three decades of Dying Fetus' existence.

For fans of Suffocation, Misery Index & Skinless.

During my early tape trading days, I developed an obsession with exploring everything that the Australian underground metal scene had to offer, even more so after joining that scene with my own death metal band Neuropath. In order to facilitate that indulgence, I started communicating with a lot of other bands from around the country, usually by mail. One of the plethora of bands that I picked up on through that exercise was Adelaide blackened death metal four-piece Martire & their 1991 self-titled debut E.P. which I quite liked & would see me keeping track of the South Australians throughout the remainder of the 1990's. Martire's chaotic take on extreme metal fell very much into line with the signature Aussie sound I was hearing at the time in that it combined my three favourite metal subgenres (i.e death metal, black metal & thrash metal) in a raucous style full of energy & authenticity & I would continue to comb the scene for more bands like that over the years. For one reason or another though, the "Martire" E.P. wouldn't end up being one that I haven't returned to much so I've been looking forward to revisiting it in the modern day to see how it holds up to my more mature ears.

"Martire" is a very short six-song release that's built for immediate impact. It would receive an initial run of 1,000 as the first metal release to come from local label Dominator Records who also put out records from other local Aussie artists like Deadpool, In:Extremis, Nocturnal & Orgy of Pigs (who shared bass player Frank Usmani with Martire). The band had recorded two unheralded demo tapes prior to the release of "Martire", the second of which contains the track "Peace Keeper" which would be re-recorded for the EP. The production job is kept very raw which suits Martire nicely given just how chaotic & noisy their sound is with the performances being quite loose by today's standards but never allowing the arrangements to completely get away from them. I enjoy the sound of this record actually. It oozes of underground credibility while allowing enough clarity for all of the key components to be heard quite easily so it's got the balance right even if it's a long way from the glossy US death metal model.

I'd describe Martire's sound as being blackened death metal with the release starting off in conventional death metal space for the first couple of tracks before expanding its arsenal into hybrid territory. It's interesting that the blackened side of the band's sound sits very close to the classic black metal model that we all know & love yet "Martire" was released a year before the Norwegian scene even took off through Darkthrone & Burzum. This fact alone gives "Martire" an extra layer of intrigue for someone like myself. Short instrumental opener "Slut" reminds me quite a bit of Autopsy's faster material but the remainder of the record sees drummer Dave Hopgood opting for a blast-beat heavy maelstrom that seems to be in a real hurry & is over in the blink of an eye. The vocals of guitarist Vince Feleppa alternate between a death grunt & a blackened shriek while the riffs tend to drift in & out of the three genres with the end result simply being too extreme to call thrash even if there is a clear thrash component to Martire's sound. I'd hazard to guess that early Morbid Angel was an influence on the guitar work based on some of the techniques on display. I have to admit that the temptation to want to call this release war metal appears quite often too but, despite sharing similar elements, it never quite gets there. You can easily see the influence on Aussie war metal artists like Bestial Warlust though.

The opening track "Slut" isn't terribly interesting to be honest but the remainder of the E.P. is universally engaging. While it may be a feather in Martire's cap at times, I have to admit that the lack of precision is a limiting factor for me in how far I can allow the E.P. to connect with me though. I certainly enjoy all of the vocal tracks but rarely find myself feeling like I can allow myself to fully commit to this record. The excellent closer "Thou Shalt Burn" is the only track that I'd suggest manages to crack the second tier with the rest of the material simply being mildly enjoyable extreme metal with a decidedly underground attitude & aesthetic. I can see other metalheads connecting with it on a grander scale than I have though as I feel that Martire fall into a space that perpetuates somewhat of a cult status. It's visceral, relentless & savage while always maintaining a level of naivety.

It's easy to see why Martire might still be talked about in the Australian underground scene as they were definitely breaking new ground on a local level. It's also not hard to appreciate why they may not have reached the global metal masses to the same extent that Slaughter Lord & Sadistik Exekution did. Still, I've quite enjoyed my revisit to "Martire" & have penciled in some time with their other demo material in the coming months as a result too. If you're looking to discover what the Australian underground extreme metal scene of the early 90's was all about then look no further than this largely forgotten piece of hectic barbarity because it's certainly not lacking in intensity.

For fans of Abominator, Anatomy & Decrepit Soul.

As a diehard fan of the most extreme end of metal, there are often found to be releases that offer a lot of appeal to me that would no doubt have your average metalhead questioning my sanity. Where the music is so intense that it teeters on the edge of no longer being music & the experience is more about the undying worship of metal music in its purest form than it is about catchy hooks or memorable riffs. Legendary Melbourne war metal outfit Bestial Warlust are one such band for me. From the moment I first heard them on late-night metal radio shortly after the release of their 1994 debut album "Vengeance War 'Till Death", I knew that this was an artist that held a deep understanding of the rush I received from the most underground metal imaginable, a character trait that could only be earned through a dedicated background in the global tape trading scene. I very quickly picked up a dubbed copy of the album from one of my trading buddies & caned it for the remainder of that year, often returning to it in the future whenever I felt like indulging in the most extreme of the extreme. I was already aware of Bestial Warlust's precursor band Corpse Molestation through their 1992 "Descension of a Darker Deity" demo tape but I'd quickly see myself seeking out anything else I could find in that space too, resulting in a few more crudely recorded cassettes that I received universal enjoyment from. "Vengeance War 'Till Death" would go on to be highly influential in the global war metal scene, as would its follow-up in 1995's "Blood & Valour", so I count myself as being lucky to see Bestial Warlust play live a number of times during the middle of the 1990's. Their shows were always an experience, often being more about the concept than the music as their sound would regularly test the capabilities of your average venue's sound system & end up sounding like an immense wall of white noise. Still... each time I return to Bestial Warlust's debut album it takes me straight back to that wonderful period of musical discovery I undertook in my late teenage years.

Bestial Warlust's debut album was recorded at Studio 001 in Carlton, Melbourne in December 1993 & January 1994 with producer Scott Horne who wasn't anyone in particular when it comes to metal music. This is interesting because I'd imagine it would have been an incredible challenge for an extreme metal novice to reproduce this music in a palatable format on tape. I mean how would they even know where to start? But to Horne's credit, he's done a wonderful job of it here in harnessing the band's incredible violence & energy with the balance of riff intelligibility & white noise being just about perfect. Joe Skullfucker's guitar solos sound suitably over the top & the vocals of front man Damon Bloodstorm (Abominator) are unbelievably confronting & savage, taking the listener down into the very pits of Hades. Bestial Warlust's lineup was a little different to the one that had produced the three or four Corpse Molestation cassettes with drummer Marcus Hellcunt (Vomitor/Gospel of the Horns) having replaced Rick Zrna who had appeared on the last few demo tapes. Hellcunt produces one of the most relentless displays of blast beats you'll ever hear too, a trait that would go on to become one of Bestial Warlust's calling cards too.

Bestial Warlust's sound is the very epitome of the war metal subgenre, perhaps even being the most suitable point of reference when defining the term given that it's about as war metal as war metal gets. I mean, just listen to the classic intro to "Hammering Down the Law of the New Gods/Holocaust Wolves of the Apocalypse" & tell me that you can't picture the wolves all in a line at the top of a snow-covered hill, preparing for the onslaught that is about to ensue. And when those super-intense blast beats take off you can almost smell the bloodshed with Damon's vocals becoming the ring-leader for some of metal's most horrific slaughter scenes. In fact, I have to reiterate what a wonderful exponent of his craft Bloodstorm is actually because his vocals are just about the most evil thing I've ever heard in my life &, when combined with the psychotic Kerry King-on-speed guitar solos, I consistently find myself receiving maximum metal jollies. Much of the material on the album was drawn from the Corpse Molestation tapes with "At the Graveyard of God", "Holocaust Wolves of the Apocalypse", "Heathens" & "Dweller of the Bottomless Pit" all being known to fans of the underground before the band's change of moniker. The way they're presented here is spectacular though & shows clear evidence of a band that knows their sound well & are hellbent on shoving it down the global metal scenes throats in the form of a huge demonic goat phallus. As someone that values extreme metal as a concept & a lifestyle as much as I do a style of music, "Vengeance War 'Till Death" represents a clear celebration of everything that the tape trading scene stands for. It's as shocking as it is unapologetic, both characteristics that give this style of music an additional edge.

Look, I'm not saying that "Vengeance War 'Till Death" is the perfect metal album because it's not. There are a couple of tracks that are much less successful than the best material with both "Heathens" & "Storming Vengeance" being more acceptable than they are exceptional. The less impressive moments generally come when the riffs don't coalesce as well with the drumming, seeing things descending into the chaos that this band tend to flirt with. But when Bestial Warlust get things right there are few exponents of the war metal sound that can match them. Just check out album highlights like "Bestial Warlust", "Hammering Down the Law of the New Gods/Holocaust Wolves of the Apocalypse" or "At the Graveyard of God" (one of the greatest achievements in extreme metal ever put to tape & the best closer ever for this genre in my opinion) for examples of what this niche sound can achieve if it's placed in the right hands. Many people are probably unaware of this but the Australian scene has been just as influential on the creation & subsequent direction of the global war metal scene as any other location in the world. Those lucky enough to be in the know will tell you that our signature sound is a chaotic blending of the death metal, black metal & thrash metal with a clear understanding of how to produce that with maximum underground credibility. Bestial Warlust is the result of these young dudes having been raised in that scene with the influence of local bands like Sadistik Exekution, Martire & Slaughter Lord being as clear as that of Canadian war metal godfathers Blasphemy.

"Vengeance War 'Till Death" should be essential listening for fans of the war metal genre. It's really that important a record in what followed. I'm thankful that I've been able to separate the fact that I harbour a deep dislike for guitarist K.K. Warslut from my enjoyment of this record following a drunken night out with Deströyer 666 some time in the mid-90's as it would have been a real shame to allow that to tarnish what is essentially of pinnacle of Australian extreme metal. The highlights may carry this album but they're so unanimous in their ability to break down my defenses that I have no alternative but to give in to the demonic assault that is thrust at me with unmatched barbarity.

For fans of Sadistik Exekution, Blasphemy & Conqueror.

Brazilian thrash metal gods Sepultura had a life-changing impact on me as a kid. They could literally do no wrong in their early days as far as I’m concerned with their first couple of releases playing a role in defining the early death/thrash sound, their next few taking thrash to heights that no one suspected the movement still had in the tank at the time & their 1993 fifth album “Chaos AD” closely competing with Pantera for the groove metal crown. I can’t deny that “Chaos AD” scared me a little though because, even though it was undeniably a high-quality & universally engaging metal album, I had to admit that it had moved slightly away from my musical sweet spot which saw my defences coming up a bit with Sepultura’s next full-length “Roots”. In fact, I didn’t even end up checking it out in full until only relatively recently. Although I have some time for “Roots”, it wasn’t exactly my bag in terms of style & the exit of Max Cavalera only exacerbated any qualms I may have had with the modern-day Sepultura. I haven’t enjoyed much of what I’ve heard from them in all the years since to be honest but that changed with their 2020 fifteenth album “Quadra” which offered me significant appeal. I haven’t returned to it since giving it a couple of well-received spins at the time of release but I’ve been looking forward to affording it the full-length review it deserves after it was nominated as this month’s The Pit feature release.

There’s a fairly sizeable gap in my knowledge of Sepultura’s back catalogue as I never gave the releases from 1998-2006 a chance after I returned to metal in 2009. Instead, I saw myself progressively checking out each subsequent full-length with a feeling of apathy being the general outcome, so much so that I didn’t even bother with 2017’s “Machine Messiah”. But the buzz around its follow-up “Quadra” saw my intrigue being strong enough to have me throwing my hat in the ring again & I had to admit that I was glad I did too as it saw Sepultura returning with their strongest release since “Chaos AD” in my opinion, perhaps not the potent statement the world was hoping the Brazilians still had in them but a decent enough effort for an old-school act nonetheless. Max’s brother Igor had also moved on by that point, calling time on his childhood band more than a decade earlier in order to work with his brother on their Cavalera Conspiracy project. Bassist Paulo Jr. (aka Paulo Xisto as he’s known here) & guitarist Andreas Kisser were still onboard from the classic Sepultura lineup though so I was a little surprised at just how far “Quadra” saw the band venturing from their classic sound. There seemed to be more ambition on display than we’d heard from Sepultura in a very long time & I had to admire the energy of an artist that had already been around for an impressive 36 years by that point.

As with “Machine Messiah”, Sepultura recorded the “Quadra” album at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden with renowned metal producer Jens Bogren who’d accumulated a huge resume of metal credits by that point in time. You can certainly hear the class in the production job here too although I can’t deny that I was a little surprised by just how clean the album sounds. This seemed to be a far more crisp & clinical Sepultura than I could recall encountering in the past & I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that to be honest. I mean, they were always very capable in terms of musicianship but here we see them sporting a production that’s more suited to a progressive metal band than a thrash/groove metal one but perhaps that’s in part due to the brand-new musical direction the band were taking because it was certainly more ambitious than I was expecting too.

The main musical feature of “Quadra” that I wasn’t expecting was the progressive component that is incorporated into a large enough chunk of the record, enough to see me claiming it as a genuinely progressive groove metal record which came as a complete surprise. As with the production, the musicianship & arrangements consistently exude a shiner & more sophisticated edge than I can remember hearing from Sepultura in the past. The regular use of progressive tools like odd time-signatures & symphonic orchestration gives “Quadra” a different look & feel to anything I’ve heard from the Brazilians in the past, so much that it’s taken me some time to come to terms with it. I’ve never been the biggest groove metal fan so I was thankful for a few thrash tunes early in the tracklisting (see “Isolation”, “Last Time” & “Ali”) although a couple of them were admittedly all progged up. Things get even more progressive through the back end of the album though, reminding me quite a bit of Devin Townsend’s more expansive work on several occasions & even heading into symphonic territory a couple of times. There are a number of more traditional groove metal numbers spread across the tracklisting (see “Means to an End”, “Capital Enslavement”, “Raging Void” & “Autem”) & it’s clearly those that I get the least appeal out of, particularly the first two which do very little for me. I definitely prefer it when Sepultura either thrash out like they did back in the day or opt for a more creative & interesting approach. The aggressive vocal delivery of front man Derrick Green is a strong contributor in tying Sepultura to their adopted groove metal sound though & I feel that my Phil Anselmo (Pantera) meets Jaz Coleman (Killing Joke) comparison is pretty much on the money. Young drummer Eloy Casagrande (currently of Slipknot) does an excellent job behind the kit, occasionally even crossing over into blast-beats when things reach their most violent. It’s the lead guitar solos of Kisser that are the real highlight here though & he proves himself to be a wonderful exponent of his craft these days, no longer opting for short bursts of dissonance like he did back in the day. These solos are beautifully crafted examples of melodic yet highly proficient musicality that may not sound like the Sepultura we grew up with but hit my metal spot hard nonetheless & with great force too. His lead tone is nothing short of brilliant here.

While “Quadra” isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, it is the best thing I’ve heard from Sepultura in the last three decades which has gotta count for something. I do have to question whether I want the Brazilians to sound like this though as this record doesn’t sound much like the Sepultura I grew up with. It’s also lacking any genuine classics which was always gonna see it struggling to see me considering for my higher scores. I’m not sure I can see myself reaching for “Quadra” again in the future but it has opened me up to the idea of exploring 2021’s “Sepulquarta” album at some stage which I hadn’t considered up until now. I’d suggest that groove metal nuts will get a bit more out of “Quadra” than I do but I’m pleased that I gave it a crack nonetheless.

For fans of Machine Head, Pantera & Devin Townsend.

Sydney industrial metal duo Deathless are an act that I've had on my radar for many years but had never gotten around to exploring until now. My main reason for wanting to check them out is fairly simple really. I used to frequent legendary Sydney metal store Utopia Records for many years & one of the two band members Damian Bennett (16-17/Khost) used to work there so I came into contact with him on a regular basis. I'm not sure why I didn't commit to exploring Damian's band at the time but I certainly always intended to. Perhaps it's just the fact that you don't see Deathless' name floating around all that much that caused the extreme delay as I can't say that I was regularly reminded of my omission. The other thing that's intriguing about Deathless though is that they don't have a guitarist in their lineup with the band being comprised of just two bass guitarists (both of who handle the vocal duties at various stages) & a drum machine which is a rare but interesting configuration. Those sort of setups can go one of two ways & I wasn't too sure which direction I'd see Deathless going so this month seemed like a good opportunity to finally answer that age-old question.

Deathless is the brain-child of Bennett & close friend David Quinn of Adelaide noise rock band King Snake Roost. The duo may have first started in Sydney, Australia but Deathless has become somewhat of an international act given that they spent some time in England & are now based in Switzerland. It would be on one of those trips to the UK that Deathless would record their debut album "Anhedonia" which was put to tape in collaboration with co-producer Lee Rumble at Von's Studio in London in July 1992. Rumble wasn't anyone special in terms of metal at the time but the resulting production job is serviceable enough for an early industrial metal act. There's no doubt that the lack of any sort of melodic instrumental component can be fairly grating upon first listen though & I have to admit that I found the album to feel a little flat early on. Industrial metal can be quite cold at the best of times but Deathless take that to a fairly extreme level given the obvious lack of any brightness or melody in their sound to give you some light at the end of the tunnel. Subsequent listens saw me becoming used to the sound of the album though & I'm pleased to say that it opened up progressively more with each revisit.

"Anhedonia" is quite a lengthy release for a debut with the nine tracks running for a fairly substantial 52 minutes. All of those tracks are given ample time to get their message across & there are a couple of examples where two songs run into each other which makes the tracklisting a little difficult to follow, particularly given that the listing on the back of the album isn't reflective of the actual CD track numbers. I managed to figure it out after a couple of listens but it was initially a bit confusing. The record is book-ended by two pieces ("God in the Political Asylum" & "In Heaven") that sit further into the traditional industrial or post-industrial space & I really enjoy both of those inclusions as they have a dark & brooding atmosphere that I totally dig which leaves them sitting as two of the three highlights for me. The other is the excellent industrial rock/metal hybrid piece "In Unmet Chambers Slain I" which snuck up on me over time after initially being one of those that went over my head due to its inherent coldness. There are admittedly a couple of songs that didn't enjoy the same privilege & remained fairly inaccessible for me throughout the whole exercise though with "Sun Turns Through Ash" & "Under the Wood" being a bit of a struggle but generally I found the album to be pretty enjoyable & there was some additional interest added for me in the inclusion of a cover version of Trouble's wonderful "Victim of the Insane" from the American doom metal masters' classic self-titled debut album from 1984, a piece that I regard as being one of my favourite doom tracks of all time.

While I definitely got more into "Anhedonia" more with each listen, I did eventually find that its appeal was capped a bit by the lack of any real melodic hooks. Unlike English industrial metal godfathers Godflesh (who would seem to be the most obvious source of inspiration for Deathless), these Aussies don't even have higher register feedback or noise at their disposal so everything can sound a little bleak (which is perhaps the point thinking about it now). The two bass guitars are used in an interesting way & don't tend to get each other's road while the drum machine sounds completely artificial which I'd imagine was always the intent. Neither of the two band members sport much in the way of vocal talent but then when has that ever stopped an industrial metal artist from having a crack (see the afore-mentioned Godlfesh for a prime example)? The incorporation of a doomier sound during the back end of the tracklisting was interesting but had mixed results with the Trouble cover version working nicely & the previously-mentioned "Under the Wood" falling flat. The rockier moments that appear through the middle of the album suffer from the same sort of inconsistency with "Sun Turns Through Ash" failing to meet the same heights of "In Unmet Chambers Slain I".

Look, there's no doubt that "Anhedonia" won't be for everyone & if you're one of those people that's too impatient to give a record a few spins before casting judgement then I'd hazard to suggest that this won't be your sort of album but I have to admit that do kinda dig it, perhaps not enough to see me returning to it in the future though. I may let my interest get the better of me & see what Deathless' later releases with Godlfesh's Justin Broadrick sound like at some point as he's always been an amazingly captivating & consistent producer but, until then, I'll have to be satisfied with my experiences with "Anhedonia" which is probably Australia's first genuine industrial metal release.

For fans of Godflesh, Bloodstar & Pitchshifter.

This month's The North feature release was beautifully timed given my very recent revisit of Novembre's 1994 debut album "Wish I Could Dream It Again...", a release that I've enjoyed for a full three decades now. Surprisingly, I've not ventured any further into the Italians' back catalogue before now but the unique combination of whispy, dreamy atmospheres combined with a progressive black metal backbone still offers me plenty of appeal so I had definitely placed 2002's "Dream d'azur" fifth full-length on my to-do list just before discovering that Ben had selected it for feature releases status. I had no idea that it was a re-recording of "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." before this week though so the last couple of days have served as a beautiful point of comparison & one that has spawned some unexpected & perhaps controversial results.

While "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." was recorded in Sweden with Dan Swanö, "Dream d'azur" would be re-enacted at home in Italy at drummer Giuseppe Orlando's (The Foreshadowing/Deinonychus) Outer Sound Studios in Rome where he collaborated with guitarist Massimiliano Pagliuso behind the mixing desk. The resulting product sounds way cleaner & more polished than the fairly raw debut album which accentuates the progressive nature of the song-writing a lot more. The keyboards play a more prominent role in the mix which is one of the main differences between the two albums. The other is the improved performances with the clean vocals of guitarist Carmelo Orlando being far stronger than his naive delivery on "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." where he seemed to intentionally waver in pitch in a relaxed way that reminded me of US college indie rock bands. His black metal screams are slightly more intense here although I did really like them on the debut too. The instrumental performances are also superior with the guitar solos having had their progressive nature ramped up significantly in terms of sophistication & technique, thanks largely to the addition of Pagliuso. The drumming of Carmelo's brother Giuseppe is once again a highlight with his delivery having been tightened up significantly but the real star of the show is session bass player Fabio Fraschini whose pure & powerful tone & unique note selection is one of the main drivers behind Novembre's fresh take on this old record. The dreamy, almost gazey atmospheres of the debut have been maintained beautifully, as have the aggressive black metal passages that are just strong enough for me to be claiming "Dream d'azur" as a progressive black metal release in much the same way as I did for "Wish I Could Dream It Again...".

But is "Dreams d'azur" really light years ahead of "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." as a point of creative expression? And does it sound as drastically different to the debut as it's often reported to be? Well, the answer to both questions is no as far as I'm concerned which I know will surprise a few people. If you look closely at "Dreams d'azur", you'll actually discover that it's a pretty faithful reenactment of "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." in terms of style & structure. Sure, there are a few tracks that have had their titles adjusted as well as a couple that have been combined into the one lengthy piece but I don't feel that the actual music being played has changed all that much apart from the more precise performances. As with the debut, I have to question the genre-tagging that's generally dished out for "Dream d'azur" though. "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." is often referred to as progressive doom/death but I couldn't find a trace of doom metal or death metal on it & the black metal component that's hardly mentioned elsewhere was strong enough for an additional primary tag. The same goes for "Dreams d'azur" with most punters tagging it as a progressive take on gothic metal, a label which is drastically out of line with reality. Once again, there's hardly a second of gothic influence on this record which generally goes in the complete other direction by shunning any semblance of darkness outside of the more aggressive black metal parts & a one-off piano section. A good portion of the riffs were quite clearly written in a dissonant, open-string black metal style & their regular combination with Carmelo's harsh screams & Giuseppe's blast-beats is impossible to overlook as far as I'm concerned. I'm absolutely baffled as to why most other fans seem to overlook these obvious character traits.

While there's no doubt that "Dreams d'azur" is a step up in terms of production from the much rawer & more primitive "Wish I Could Dream It Again...", I dispute the claims that it's some sort of classic while the debut is left floundering as immature folly. As someone that has spent three decades with its elder sibling, the younger record simply seems like a different take on it more than a drastic improvement. I'm not saying that "Dreams d'azur" is not the better record because it is but not by anywhere near as much as some critics would have you believe. Yes, the production & performances are superior but that doesn't mean that the song-writing wasn't just as unique & captivating back in 1994. The main advantage for "Dreams d'azur" is in the ability for the stronger tracks to have their impact maximized as we see in the wonderful versions of "Let Me Hate" & "Neanderthal Sands", both of which manage to reach genuine classic status here when they had that potential curtailed a bit on the debut where they didn't even sit amongst the best few tracks. I do think that I prefer the closer "Christal" a bit more on "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." though where it was shorter & a touch darker. The comparisons for the remainder of the tracklisting leaves me feeling fairly similarly to be honest with the cleaner sound & execution not really equating to Novembre reaching greater creative heights.

There's no doubt that "Dreams d'azur" is a very solid progressive black metal album full of intrigue & atmosphere though. While I clearly hold a soft spot for "Wish I Could Dream It Again...", I will comfortably concede that it's not nearly as accessible a listen as the re-recording is & I'd recommend that any Novembre virgins proceed directly past GO! & collect their $200 at the shinier 2002 model. Overlook the debut at your peril though as it's not the handicapped cousin its often touted as being. In fact, all of the elements that make "Dreams d'azur" so great were already there but they just needed a little coaxing to come out of their shell.

For fans of Green Carnation, Opeth & Alcest.

Hilariously titled Austrian death metallers Pungent Stench & I have always shared a positive relationship. I got onboard with them fairly early on in their recording career with both of their first two albums receiving a tonne of plays from me as a young fella while I also quite liked their split record with countrymen Disharmonic Orchestra. They'd started to dick with their sound a bit on 1993's "Dirty Rhymes & Psychotronic Beats" E.P. though with their filthy take on the classic death metal model having been infiltrated by the death 'n' roll sound that bands like Entombed & Carcass were pushing at the time, along with some further experimentation with electronics. Many fans couldn't get into their new direction but I still found enough to keep me interested. It did put my guard up a little when it came to the Stench's next release in 1994's "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" though. Still... while it may not have been the Pungent Stench I'd developed such a strong affiliation with during their early days, I can't deny that it still offered me a reasonable level of appeal & remember the experience quite fondly, despite not having returned to the album since the mid-1990's. I wouldn't say that I've been absolutely busting to return to the album this week but I was a little intrigued to see if I'd still find it a positive experience in my more mature years.

As with all of Pungent Stench's previous material, "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" features some seriously sick themes & cover art which is perhaps the main reason that they had even become known to me in the first place. I picked up my copy of the album on CD from the local metal record store upon release & had no idea of what visual delights I was in for based on first impressions with the cover's true identity only being fully unveiled upon removing it from the jewel case & unfolding it to reveal an image that my mother would no doubt have been horrified to know her teenage some was casually perusing. The band had maintained the same three-piece lineup that they'd traversed their entire back catalogue with to the time & had recorded the album at Sing Sang Studios in Vienna, Austria during the middle of 1993 with front man Martin Schirenc (Hollenthon/Kreuzweg Ost) sharing the production duties with Gregore Schwarzenegger who had worked with the Stench on all of their previous records. The resulting sound is a little less disgusting & metallic than we may have come to expect from the band but isn't all that different to that we heard on "Dirty Rhymes & Psychotronic Beats" with the guitar tone having as much in common with grunge/alternative rock as it does with metal. This suits the style of the riffs quite well & gives the album some additional swing which was an important component of Pungent Stench's mid-90's sound. In fact, this element alone is almost enough to tell the casual listener that they shouldn't take things too seriously when it comes to this band.

From a stylistic point of view, "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" sees Pungent Stench completely dropping the sickly death metal sound of their roots in order to fully indulge themselves in the death 'n' roll sound that they'd begun exploring on the E.P. from the previous year. Schirenc's death grunts have been maintained but the instrumentation has taken a more groove-oriented approach that sees the rhythm section of Pitbull Jack & Rector Stench combining to give the Austrians a healthy swagger while Shirenc does his best to repulse the listener with his humorous yet still unashamedly disgusting lyrics. Martin clearly had a real knack for this sort of shit & I can't help but find the appeal in his clever way with words, even if they were often used to describe scenes where people were consuming each other's waste amongst other things. I don't generally go for a more satirical or comical brand of metal but there's just something about the way that Pungent Stench have angled their approach that seems to overcome any hesitation I might normally maintain for this sort of thing.

In saying that though, the tracklisting is fairly inconsistent with all of the material hovering either side of my enjoyment threshold. Thankfully, the wins slightly outweigh the losses here to see me affording the album a respectable score but it was a fairly close call to be honest. A good half of these tracks aren't really all that enjoyable to someone that takes their extreme metal as seriously as I do but the other half offer just enough messy fun to make the whole experience palatable. It's really pretty hard not the smile while listening to the stronger inclusions here, even if they'll hardly change your life. "I'm a Family Man", "True Life" & "Fuck Bizarre" are probably my pick of the bunch but "Treatments of Pain" & "Rape - Pagar Con La Misma Moneda" are also pretty decent. There's nothing too horrible amongst the material that sits on the other side of the line though so the lack of any genuine classics hasn't had the impact that it might have in the event of anything truly awful having been included.

Look... death 'n' roll isn't really my thing but I'll be damned if Pungent Stench don't know who to do it right. While "Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only" may well have been the weakest Stench offering to the time, it still manages to put a smile on my dial & that's really the intent of this sort of outfit, isn't it? In saying that though, I do think a large chunk of our The Horde members might struggle with it a bit so if you don't have much time for the artists I've listed below as points of reference then you may wanna steer clear of this one.

For fans of Xysma, mid-to-late 90's Gorefest & "Swansong"-era Carcass.

While Metallica's classic fourth album "...And Justice For All" may represent my gateway into extreme metal back in late 1988, the ability for a local Australian band to create a genuinely intense metal release still seemed a little unattainable to me for a while, that is... until I picked up the first edition of a new Aussie metal/hard rock magazine called "Hot Metal" from the local news agency in May 1989. It came with a cover CD that included a collection of sixteen tracks from a variety of artists, mostly on the popular glam/hair metal end of the metal spectrum. Amongst them were great inclusions from acts like Ozzy Osbourne & Yngwie Malmsteen that saw me exploring their back catalogues extensively over the coming months but the track that stood out from all the rest was a song called "Mayhemic Destruction" from a young Sydney band by the name of Mortal Sin whose vicious attack appeared to sit on the deathlier side of thrash metal. I was a complete Big Four nut at the time with Slayer being my musical gods so the sheer intensity of this song offered me massive appeal & saw me quickly reaching out to the older skaters at my high school to see if I could secure a dubbed copy of the "Mayhemic Destruction" album. Thankfully, they were able to oblige & I'd spend a bit of time with Mortal Sin's debut record over the next couple of weeks before leaving it behind to explore ever more extreme forms of metal music over the next few years. Regardless, Mortal Sin would remain with me as a constant presence during my early time in the Sydney metal scene until I'd take a self-imposed decade-long hiatus from metal altogether in 1998. I'd see them play live on a number of occasions which could inevitably see my blood boiling with a desire to fulfil my own dreams of playing extreme metal on stage. I've even gotten to know a couple of the band members a bit over the years with drummer Wayne Campbell (Baltak/Grungeon) booking my death metal band Neuropath for a number of live gigs & vocalist Mat Maurer's daughter becoming a gig buddy of mine which would see Mat tagging along to some of the shows we'd attend during the 2010's after my return to metal. It was an interesting exercise to return to "Mayhemic Destruction" a couple of years ago now though as it gave me a new perspective on the legacy of Mortal Sin & the Australian metal scene in general & this week's second revisit has only provided further justification for my existing position on it.

I believe "Mayhemic Destruction" was originally intended to be a demo tape which stacks up when you consider that Mortal Sin hadn't released any recorded music at all at the time. It was recorded at Studio 301 in Sydney (which is where I mastered my own solo CD in 1999 interestingly enough) during the middle of 1986 with the recording process taking just three days & the mixing amounting to forty hours. A gentleman by the name of John Stitch-Darwish was responsible for the production & he was a relatively unknown entity in terms of metal although he would later go on to produce Armoured Angel's sole 1999 full-length "Angel of the Sixth Order". Despite his lack of experience in the field though, Darwish's production job does the job nicely here, particularly for a release that was only intended to be a demo. All of the instruments are presented with clarity & separation with the powerful bass guitar of Andy Eftichiou being the main driver in Mortal Sin's thrash metal attack. The guitars having an incisive tinniness which wasn't uncommon in late 80's thrash while Campbell's drums are full & offer plenty of depth. Maurer's vocals are given plenty of room to boom out over the top too so "Mayhemic Destruction" was afforded every chance to make an impact with a local metal market that hadn't received much in the way of well-produced & executed thrash metal at the time.

Mortal Sin's early sound wasn't the most technical or sophisticated you'll find in thrash metal, even for the mid-80s. The riffs were generally very simple with the tempo rarely exceeding mid-pace & the structures relying heavily on the tight execution & decent Darwish production job for appeal. Eftichiou's bass lines are the main driver that gets your head banging & I feel that he was probably the most accomplished musician here too. Metallica's 1983 debut album "Kill 'Em All" was very clearly the main source of inspiration though & there's even a case for claiming the majority of "Mayhemic Destruction" as nothing more than a Metallica clone if I'm being perfectly honest. Just listen to tracks like "Women in Leather" or "Into the Fire" & tell me you don't hear the obvious references to "Seek & Destroy". I'll give you the tip that you won't be able to & the same can be said for speed metal anthem "Blood, Death, Hatred" & Metallica's "The Four Horsemen" because the inspiration is blatantly obvious & when combined with Maurer's extraordinarily Hetfield-ish vocal delivery it's easy to simply cast Mortal Sin aside as a poor man's replica of the Californian gods of the thrash metal movement. I can't say that I'm not onboard with the way of thinking either but there are moments on this album where Mortal Sin manage to cast aside that stigma to produce some excellent thrash in their own right.

The tracklisting isn't without blemish mind you with a couple of songs not doing much for me at all. "Liar" & "Mortal Slaughter" just seem to be a little bit basic & lacking in depth & substance to me but the remainder of the album is all enjoyable enough. The closing title track is the clear highlight in my opinion & it stands out like a sore thumb as it's sound is simply so different to the rest of the material. It's a lot more extreme than the other seven tracks with the intensity of the riffage having been upped significantly & sounding a lot more like the Teutonic thrash scene than the Bay Area one the other material is centred around. The vocals are also delivered in more of a death metal grunt which blew my mind upon first hearing it on the "Hot Metal" compilation, particularly given the glammy nature of the remainder of the artists on that CD. The other track that stood out to me was the chunky "Lebanon" with its lyrical themes having a potent effect & its riffs representing the high point for Mortal Sin's mid-tempo thrash sound. It's a shame that these two songs stand out so much from the rest of the material though as it leaves me feeling that the overall package sits closer to the third tier of the thrash metal spectrum than it does to the first or second. I mean, we're talking 1987 here which was still very much at the peak of the genre so there was a lot of competition floating around &, looking back now, it's hard not to feel that "Mayhemic Destruction" has been overrated by an Aussie metal scene that was simply starving for good content. Personally, I can't deny that this is my position on it these days if I'm being honest which it pains me to admit given just how big in influence Mortal Sin had on me as a bright-eyed young metal musician looking to crack into the local Sydney scene.

While "Mayhemic Destruction" may not be the game-changer that a lot of Aussies might have you believe it is, I'd suggest that most members of our The Pit clan will gain some enjoyment out of it because it definitely reminds me of the fun that could be had in getting drunk with your mates & moshing around someone's backyard. Its simplicity is also its biggest asset in many ways as it remains accessible throughout but I don't think Maurer's vocal skills were quite enough to overcome the band's limitations, at least not yet. In fact, I've never been much of a fan of his performance here if I'm being honest. 1989's "Face of Despair" sophomore album would also frequent my tape deck in 1989 & it offered a similar level of appeal although I think I've always slightly favoured the debut over it as the better representation of the early roots of Australian thrash. It's just not the unheralded thrash classic that so many of my Aussie peers would have you believe it is.

For fans of Xentrix, Stone & "Kill 'Em All"-period Metallica.

By the time 1994 rolled around, Ben & I would have to have been considered to be enormous My Dying Bride fanboys. I was hooked from the first few seconds of the title track from the Halifax doom/death legends' 1992 "Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium" E.P. & had religiously followed everything they'd done since with Ben even claiming them to be his favourite band at the time. I still consider that E.P. as well as the three releases that followed it (i.e. debut album "As the Flower Withers", 1993's "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P. & their career-defining sophomore album "Turn Loose the Swans") to be genuine extreme metal classics so there was a whole world of anticipation around the release of My Dying Bride's next release which ended up being the third in the trilogy of annual E.P.'s the band would produce. I remember it being another rewarding experience too but I can't say that I've ever placed "I Am The Bloody Earth" alongside those earlier classics for one reason or another, despite returning to it a number of times over the years. Let's take a look at why.

As with the "Symphonaire Infernus Et Spera Empyrium" & "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P's, "I Am The Bloody Earth" contains just the three tracks. The title track & the remixed version of "The Crown of Sympathy" (i.e. one of the absolute stunners from "Turn Loose The Swans") were recorded as a part of the album sessions at Academy Studios in Wolverhampton during June & July of 1993 with producer Robert Magoolagan (aka Mags). The other inclusion (a lengthy dance remix track by the name of "Transcending (Into the Exquisite)") was created at Finsbury Street Studios in York some time afterwards. When listening to the three tracks back-to-back, there's a clear separation between them in that they all come at you from different angles. Mags was starting to make a name for himself as a metal producer following his work on Anathema's first couple of records & 1994 would be a big year for him with his name being attached to Cradle of Filth's "The Principles of Evil Made Flesh" debut album & Solstice's "Lamentations" as well as engineering credits on Enchantment's "Dance the Marble Naked" & Paradise Lost's "Seals the Sense" E.P. so he was definitely building himself a reputation. "Turn Loose the Swans" turned out brilliantly too with his co-production arrangement with My Dying Bride appearing to work a treat. The same can be said for the two doom/death tracks included here as they both sound very much like the My Dying Bride that had completely annihilated us all the previous year. I do have one issue with the remix of "The Crown of Sympathy" though & I apologize for mentioning it if it forever scars your listening experience moving forward. For some inexplicable reason, the snare drum has had some reverb & panning done to it that makes it stand out like a sore thumb. It's not enough to impact my love of the overall track but it does take just a touch of gloss off what should have been musical perfection as far as I'm concerned. "Transcending (Into the Exquisite)" is another story altogether though as it represents one of the bigger challenges that any remixer has had to face in terms of metal.

Let me be very clear, my love of "I Am The Bloody Earth" & "The Crown of Sympathy (Remix)" is everlasting & undying. Both clearly articulate the magic of My Dying Bride in their prime & are classics in their own right. In fact, listening back now, I find it surprising that the title track wasn't deemed to be a strong enough fit for "Turn Loose the Swans" because it's a doom/death classic in every respect. It probably wouldn't have sat amongst the very best few tracks but I enjoy it a little more than I do opener "Sear Me MCMXCIII" if I'm being honest so I think it could have made the album even better. All of the ingredients are there from the melancholic atmosphere to the intimidating death growls to the heart-wrenching guitar harmonies to the gorgeous violin melodies, this is classic My Dying Bride in all their glory. "The Crown of Sympathy" may well be my favourite song from my favourite My Dying Bride release too so it was always likely to float my boat in a slightly different arrangement. The differences from the original are only subtle here with the track duration having been slightly reduced & some haunting echoes having been added here & there for added mystery. Despite my qualms with the snare drum, I absolutely adore this track & place it right up there with the greats of the genre. It's the dance remix piece that is the real talking point here though & I feel that I'm well positioned to discuss its merits given my background as a techno DJ. Look, I think it's fair to say that the majority of extreme metal fanatics were always going to struggle with this concept even if it was done splendidly but what we receive is very much a dog's breakfast. The arrangement sounds jerky & unfocused with the beats having been poorly integrated & the electronic splashes coming across as abrupt & off-putting. It's not an absolute abomination but it is a significant disappointment that has single-handedly caused My Dying Bride to descend from the realms of unanimous perfection to more human territories. I can't imagine how Aaron & co. must have felt upon hearing this piece for the first time because I can't see them being fans of its industrial metal meets electro-industrial approach.

There are those that can be pretty harsh on "I Am The Bloody Earth" based purely on the inclusion of "Transcending (Into the Exquisite)" & the fact that the remix track isn't all that different to the original. Personally, I choose to rate each release based purely on the quality of the music included on that release while ignoring the perceived value for money aspect that may impact listeners who are well across the rest of a band's back catalogue. With that in mind, "The Crown of Sympathy (Remix)" has only been received positively by this MDB fanboy but I can't deny that the dance remix has tainted the holistic package, particularly given its length. I still very much enjoy my time with this E.P. but I can't say that I regard it as being on the same level as the band's earlier work when it contains a nine-minute piece that I'd rather forget.

For fans of Paradise Lost, Novembers Doom & early Anathema.

I took my first tentative steps out into the Sydney metal scene as an enthusiastic 15 year-old during the very early 1990's, buoyed by the discovery of a local act by the name of Mortal Sin in 1989 who had seen the wool being pulled away from my eyes in regard to the potential for a local band to create high-quality extreme metal. I very quickly found myself attending every all-ages gig I could find & learning the rub of the land as to who were the key players in a fairly limited market in comparison to the other major Australian cities. One band that was always floating around was a silly bunch of rapscallions by the name of Fester Fanatics who were connected to a couple of other notable Sydney acts at the time. These guys were somewhat of a live staple around those parts in those days & were strongly connected to the thrash metal scene that I'd become so enamored with in the late 1980's. It was around 1990/91 that I became aware of Fester Fanatics' 1987 debut album "What Choice Do We Have?" through the older skater kids at my high school & I remember finding the links to thrash & crossover to be a little bit tenuous at the time. I was already a fan of Massive Appendage (i.e. the novelty thrash metal band that a few of the Fester Fanatics' members were a part of & the act I believe is responsible for producing the very first conventional thrash metal album to come out of Australia) but this record sounded a fair bit less thrashy to my young ears. It also seemed to offer a fair bit less enjoyment so I cast it aside after a few listens & haven't returned to it since. It's time to rectify that today though as I revisit this very underground record from this seminal Sydney metal band.

"What Choice Do We Have?" was recorded & mixed on 8-track 1/2'" tape at Fatboy Studios some time in 1987 with the album being released on 8th December that year. It was self-produced by guitarist Darren McCormack (aka Jed Starr of Massive Appendage, Kings Cross & Killing Time) which would appear to have been a mistake on the evidence here because this record sounds raw & noisy as fuck & not in a good way. In fact, I'd suggest that any chance the album had of being successful was nullified by this element alone if I'm being honest. The vocals of notorious front man Alfie Fester (who the band was named after thanks to Alfie's signature bald-headed look) are also pretty rough & a long way from accomplished. That probably doesn't matter as much as it might for other bands though as there's no doubt at all that Fester Fanatics didn't take themselves too seriously. We may not have the blatant sexual references that Massive Appendage's "The Severed Erection" album built its reputation on but there are four tongues firmly wedged into the cheeks of the four band members here.

Although it's known as a thrash record, "What Choice Do We Have?" sees Fester Fanatics taking a whole bunch of creative directions with the most prominent component clearly coming from traditional heavy metal which is the only primary genre tag I can justify here. Just listen to the obvious references to Black Sabbath's "Children of the Grave" on the silly album low point that is "My Mama Wears Army Boots" for a clear example of Fester Fanatics' influences. The eighteen tracks do include a couple of tracks each from the thrash metal & crossover thrash genres but it's simply not enough to justify a thrash label for the album overall. I think people tend to want to reach for the crossover tag based purely on the extensive use of gang vocals & the general silliness in the song-writing. Across the album you'll also find moments that call on Anthrax-style rap metal, speed metal that sounds like sped-up Iron Maiden, the glam metal of Jed Starr, his brother Snuff Beastly & drummer Tubby Wadsworth's other band King's Cross, hardcore punk & even some dalliances with smooth jazz & jazz fusion. It doesn't make much sense from a creative point of view but then I'm not sure it's supposed to either. It's all about having a bit of drunken fun with your mates & it no doubt served that purpose at the time too.

The quality of the lengthy tracklisting is questionable though to be fair. I quite like about half of it but wouldn't say that there's anything I feel like returning to at any point either. There's not anything terribly awful included though so it's kind of a middling record in many respects. The best moments are no doubt when Jed let's it rip with some stunning lead guitar work which makes the rest of the record sound decidedly amateurish in comparison. Jed has always been an awesome guitar player & there are a number of moments spread across the album that highlight that beautifully, particularly his unaccompanied Eddie Van Halen-style solo piece in "Musicians Choice" which is arguably the best thing on the album. I definitely enjoy Fester Fanatics' thrashier moments more than their more commercially accessible heavy metal material too but that's no surprise really, is it? I just don't think there's enough of it here to keep me interested with some of the chuggy heavy metal tunes sounding a little phoned in, even if the band members all prove themselves to be quite capable.

At the end of the day, there has to be also-rans & "What Choice Do We Have?" falls well & truly into that camp as there are much better early Australian metal releases than this one. It's not in the same class as the Massive Appendage album in my opinion & I don't think too many classic heavy metal fans are gonna find all that much appeal in it either as Alfie's vocals simply aren't strong enough to compete in that space. The only place I see this release fitting in is in the novelty record market which is extremely niche & is not really any of my business.

For fans of Massive Appendage, King's Cross & Scatterbrain.

The 1994 debut album from Rome five-piece Novembre is another release that my younger brother & I stumbled over during the initial stages of Ben's obsession with the doom/death subgenre during the mid-90's. During that period, Ben would regularly bring home new CDs that he'd often bought unheard & based predominantly on feedback from record store staff that were responding to his enquiries around the latest releases to push his new subgenre of choice. One of those releases would be Novembre's "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." which was definitely one of the more unusual records he'd invested in as it's been a misunderstood release over the years in some ways. I remember being somewhat surprised that Ben had been handed this one as it didn't sound much like the other slow & depressive doom/death records he'd been bringing home. It was different enough to intrigue me nonetheless as it's an extremely expansive & inventive album for such a young metal band. If my internet sources are correct then it's been swallowed up by time & a discography that would go on to even greater things but "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." is still the only Novembre record that I'm familiar with & I've returned to it a number of times over the years so I've been looking forward to finally giving it a dedicated review so as to see if it's as underrated as I suspect it is.

"Wish I Could Dream It Again..." was recorded at Unisound Studios in Sweden in October 1994 with legendary Swedish metal figure Dan Swanö of Bloodbath/Edge of Sanity/Pan.Thy.Monium fame behind the mixing desk. The production isn't as polished as one might expect from a progressive metal release & neither are the performances which maintain a looseness that gives the whole thing a little more humanity than it might otherwise have possessed. That's not to say that there aren't some impressively creative & expansive instrumental contributions included here but it's easy to see that this was Novembre's first foray into the studio because it is a little rough around the edges with Swanö's production giving it more of a blackened feel than it's often given credit for. In fact, the links to the doom/death subgenre are almost non-existent on "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." & I can only think that the tendency to paint the album with that brush is largely based on Novembre's later works although I have no personal experience with that material to base that on so it's really only a hunch. Still... the lack of any genuine doom is a little confounding when you see how the album is tagged on other websites. To my ears, this is mainly a progressive metal release but there's just enough atmospheric black metal here to see it qualifying for an additional primary tag in my opinion. It certainly leans quite heavily to the progressive side of that equation but I think it would be an oversight not to alert the public to the obvious black metal component that permeates much of the tracklisting. I mean, just listen to the regular use of dissonant open-string guitar work for example which is taken straight out of the black metal playbook. This is certainly quite a whispy, dreamy & largely unintimidating version of black metal though, in much the same way as blackgaze artists like Alcest only there's no real shoegaze component here.

The tracklisting is exceptionally consistent with no weak tracks included in the lengthy thirteen-track, 65-minute run time. I don't think there are any clear standout tracks though with the quality levels predominantly remaining flat at a very solid position thanks to Novembre's unusual knack for writing melodic extreme metal of depth & originality. If pushed, I'd probably suggest that "Behind My Window/My Seas of South", "Novembre/Its Blood" & "Swim Seagull In the Sky" sit amongst the best material although I certainly still have a soft spot for "Neanderthal Sands" which was my first exposure to Novembre through a Terrorizer magazine cover CD I picked up shortly before Ben made this purchase. I definitely find myself attracted to the more blackened material but have been thoroughly impressed by Novembre's ambitious approach here nonetheless. The vocals of guitarist Carmelo Orlando alternate between an intentionally fairly loose & pitchy indie rock clean tone & a blackened snarl to great effect & I really enjoy the shredding guitar solos that he & fellow axeman Antonio Poletti (Deceptionist/Hideous Divinity) bless us with at times. The drumming of Carmelo's younger brother Giuseppe Orlando (The Foreshadowing/Deinonychus) is the clear highlight of the album in my opinion though as he shows himself to be a very capable musician with the imagination to integrate some very interesting rhythmic patterns & cymbal work at the same time as being able to blast away with power & precision.

While "Wish I Could Dream It Again..." may or may not be Novembre's weakest full-length, it shouldn't be discounted by fans because it's unique & inventive take on extreme metal is a rare commodity in a global scene that's littered with copy-cats. It's surprising to think of just how young these gents were when they put this record together because it's a highly sophisticated effort for the time & deserves more attention than it's received for it too. In fact, on the evidence here I'm gonna have to immediately place Novembre's more widely celebrated records like 2001's "Novembrine Waltz" & 2002's "Dreams d'azur" into my to-do list as they must be something to behold if they're stronger than this excellent debut album that I'd recommend to all members of The Infinite as well as our more open-minded The North members.

For fans of Green Carnation, Opeth & Alcest.

Melbourne death metallers are another fairly underground Aussie artist that had a lasting influence on me & my own band Neuropath throughout the early-to-mid 1990's. They began life as a four-piece under the Acheron moniker back in 1988 & released a couple of demos & a 7" single before changing their name to Abramelin just in time for the release of their suitably titled 1994 "Transgression From Acheron" E.P., a move that was driven by the existence of a more well-known Pittsburgh death metal outfit that had also selected Acheron as their band name. The Acheron releases were all pretty decent which led me to explore the Abramelin CD as soon as it hit the stores & it very quickly became a release that would receive regular plays around the Neuropath rehearsal room & social gatherings. In fact, Neuropath shared a fair few traits with Abramelin & it's a little hard to know whether that was coincidence or not now as there were just so many influences floating around at the time. It's fair to say that I've been really looking forward to revisiting "Transgression From Acheron" for a good while now though as it's firmly rooted in the style of metal that I tend to gravitate to most i.e. the most deathly of the death metal genre.

"Transgression From Acheron" is a short 23-minute release that includes just the four songs, two of which appeared on Acheron's 1992 demo tape in "Human Abbatoir" & "Relish the Blood". It was recorded at Double Tea Studios in May of 1994 with bass player Justin Wornes behind the mixing desk. Justin had been involved with a whole slew of underground metal demos & E.P.'s by that stage so he had little bit of experience behind him with his resume including the likes of Corpse Molestation (aka Bestial Warlust), diSEMBOWELMENT, Vauxdvihl & Necrotomy. The result of his efforts isn't too bad here with all of the instruments being easily decipherable. I will say that the guitar tone isn't as good as I would hope for though as it could do with a little more brightness while the snare drum does sound a little too close to an upside-down bucket but these aren't major complaints as I don't think anyone would shun this E.P. solely due to concerns with the production. I do think that some punters might have picked it up based purely on the intimidating band logo & attractive cover artwork though as I find the dark & imposing 17th century Salvator Rosa painting (entitled "Scene of the Witches") to be a real selling point.

Abramelin's five-piece sound is about as death metal as death metal comes. Tim Aldridge (diSEMBOWELMENT) & Mark Schilby's (Necrotomy) rhythm guitars are chunky & down-tuned, Euan Heriot's (Blood Duster/Fracture) blast-beats are fast & intense & vocalist Simon Dower's death growls are unintelligible & monstrous with comparisons to Cannibal Corpse's Chris Barnes & Suffocation's Frank Mullen being pretty easy to draw. The first two songs "Human Abattoir" & "Humble Abode" (my personal favourite) are clearly the more brutal of the four on offer & also represent the clear highlights of the E.P. as Abramelin are at their best when they drop their shackles & opt for pure savagery. Outside of those sections, the band tend to produce some fairly simple & uncluttered death metal, occasionally with a noticeable groove but rarely leaving the confines of the graveyard from which they were spawned from. There are some attempts to create atmosphere here & there, generally with a good level of success, although the lead guitar work isn't exactly dazzling & can come across as a bit basic to an old shredder like myself. The E.P. oozes of zombified death metal authenticity though & even verges on my beloved brutal death metal subgenre at times, although (outside of the ultra-gutteral vocals) those links tend to fade away through the back half of the tracklisting.

There's not a lot wrong with "Transgression From Acheron" to be honest. I guess I was just expecting to like it a bit more than I have based on my recollections from the mid-90's. I saw Abramelin play live a couple of times & they were significant events for me & the rest of Neuropath while I will always admire their dedication to a purest take on the genre. It's just that there are generally always parts of their songs that lack a little in the way of ambition & are more generic in their make-up than I'd like. I'll certainly always love Dower's vocal delivery & could listen to the fast & beautifully executed, grind-driven blast-beat sections till the cows come home but I can't deny that the E.P. feels a little less essential than the Misery & Psychrist releases I've been revisiting over the last couple of months. Regardless, I can't see it disappointing too many of our The Horde clan members so it's gotta be doing a lot right.

For fans of Invocation (AUS), Misery & Psychrist.

It was only within the last year that I really discovered the sole full-length album from Melbourne hardcore punk act Permanent Damage & the experience excited me. The crossover thrash component of the album saw me getting a touch over-enthusiastic & I feel like I jumped the gun a little bit on claiming "End of Innocence" as an unheralded gem of the early crossover movement. This is my first revisit since that time & I feel like I've been able to see through the weeds a little bit better this time & have come out with a slightly different take on it. I still enjoy the album quite a bit, perhaps even more than I did on those initial sessions, but the additional scrutiny I've given the album on a track-by-track basis has seen me questioning my previous position a bit, not in relation to the merits of "End of Innocence" as a piece of art but more around the validity of Permanent Damage's claims to a place at the Metal Academy table. 

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself experimenting with Permanent Damage's earlier self-titled single from 1985, a three-song affair that offered nothing much in the way of metal & which led me to this reassessment of the band's 1987 album. As with the other Melbourne hardcore acts I've been playing around with in recent months (see Depression, Vicious Circle, etc.), Permanent Damage started out as a pure punk outfit before allowing the surging global metal movement to infiltrate their sound. By the time the band had entered the studio to record "End of Innocence" they were a much more potent force though & one has to wonder about how much these underground acts influenced each other in this regard. There had been significant changes to Permanent Damage's lineup in the two years since the single with original drummer Jenk having been replaced by Danny O'Callahan who also spent some time with fellow Melbourne hardcore/crossover band Depression where Jenk's brother Spike had handled the vocal duties during their early days so the scene was certainly a little bit incestuous at the time. Peter Young had also been added as a second guitarist with Young handling the lead duties while Izy Semovic played the supporting rhythm guitar role. It's unclear as to how much of an impact these changes had had on Permanent Damage's sound (if any) but if I had to guess I'd say that Permanent Damage had picked up a bit of their more metallic direction from Depression who were the more established band at the time.

"End of Innocence" was recorded in two days at S.S. Studio in Sydney & was mastered at the legendary Studio 301 which is, interestingly enough, where I had my own solo CD mastered back in 1999. The resulting record sounds great too with the production job nicely balancing the raw electricity of a live hardcore band with the clarity required to give it a level of accessibility. The album opens in a really energetic fashion with three of the thrashier songs landing in quick succession. Front man Manny Maragoudakis does a great job at summoning the audience to throw themselves around the house, car, mosh pit or any other venue they may have chosen for the task & I find him to be quite a charismatic figure whose use of phrasing has a habit of drawing me in & commanding my undivided attention. The metal component starts to take a backward seat through the middle of the album though with hardcore punk being the dominant force across the majority of the record, so much so that I've had to rethink my earlier position on Permanent Damage's right to be here at the Academy. Overall, I think I was a little hasty in awarding them a crossover thrash badge because I now feel that that was perhaps a little ambitious. Of the sixteen tracks on offer here, I'd suggest that only five of them really warrant a thrash tag which isn't enough for me to go with a dual tagging. The thrash component ends up being more of an influence than a protagonist when the album is viewed holistically so I've been forced to back down on my previous position in this regard.

Despite this revelation, I've still found myself enjoying "End of Innocence" quite a bit & it's definitely worth a few listens for fans of the metallic hardcore sound. Album highlight "Victim of Misery" is honestly one of the best hardcore tracks I've ever heard & has thoroughly blown me away this week, repeatedly urging me to reach for the skip button in order to replay it while taking the long drive to work each morning. Crossover thrash opener "Warcry" is also really strong, as is energetic hardcore outing "Sniff Your Defeat". There are only a couple of flatter moments across the sixteen tracks too with the hardcore/crossover hybrid "Live for Life" & the lighter-weight hardcore number "Kill for Lies" both falling a little short of the mark for me personally. Still, it's hard to be too critical because the track lengths are quite short which means that any blemishes are short-lived. During the back end of the album you can also find a couple of more expansive & experimental tracks that add some interest with both the title track & closer "Time" sitting further over into post-hardcore territory than they do your more frantic & red-blooded hardcore punk space.

While I'm disappointed that I can no longer consider "End of Innocence" as one of my favourite crossover thrash records, I am excited that I've discovered yet another world class Aussie hardcore record. I honestly had no idea that we had so many great hardcore bands during the 1980's & I think Melbourne must have been a great place to be if you were a snot-nosed, mohawk-wearing punk rocker at the time. I don't think too many fans of the genre will be disappointed with "End of Innocence", even if it's perhaps not quite as vital or as metal as the better Depression work from the same period.

For fans of Depression, Condemned? & Vicious Circle.

During the formative years of my own death metal band Neuropath, there were a number of Aussie artists that played important roles in inspiring us to take things to a much higher level than we may otherwise have done & Canberra death metallers Psychrist were one of the more important. I had the pleasure of seeing them play live on a number of occasions & always loved their sound while their debut E.P. "The Abysmal Fiend" played a starring role around our rehearsal room & social gatherings for an extended period. I'd quite enjoyed Psychrist's 1992 demo tape but the E.P. was more emphatic in its statement & it was fantastic to hear a local group creating something that rivalled the Americans for class & intensity. It's really surprised me to discover that Psychrist haven't even been added to our database yet as they simply seem like such a significant player in Australian extreme metal & perhaps that just emphasizes how isolated we were in a pre-internet time. Regardless, I hope you take something from this review as Psychrist deserve to be heard & not just because of my nostalgia for a simpler time.

"The Abysmal Fiend" is a 26-minute, six-song affair that sports a more than acceptable Powerhouse Studio production job from a completely unheard of producer named Craig Beck who hasn't gone on to do anything else of note as far as I'm aware. It sounds thick & chunky yet maintains enough rawness to offer an obvious appeal for the more underground side of the scene with the guitar tone coming across as fairly sloppy in isolation yet becoming strangely cohesive when positioned within the full band aesthetic. The execution is highly professional for a first-up effort with Psychrist sounding like they'd been doing it their whole lives at this point. I recently reviewed a couple of the early releases from Brisbane death metallers Misery who were also a huge influence on Neuropath & this doesn't sound all that dissimilar to them or Gorguts' 1991 debut album "Considered Dead" although it's a lot faster & more brutal at times, particularly due to the addition of some fast & precise blast beats from drummer James Simper. In fact, there are a couple of tracks that spill all the way over into the brutal death metal space (see "The Shroud of Profanity" & "Copraphile") which no doubt left me with feeling a wide array of jollies back in the day given my fascination with the early brutal death metal scene. Psychrist display a really good sense of dynamics here though as there's a lot of variety in their decisions around tempo & this is a real strength. I particularly enjoy the vocals of guitarist & band leader Yuri Ward (Armoured Angel/Lord Kaos) who I enjoyed a few chats with over a beer or two back in the day while the use of harmonies & layering in the guitar work is professionally executed with bassist Dan Marsden (Astriaal) holding bottom end down nicely.

The tracklisting is completely without blemish & is very solid indeed. Interestingly, the obvious weak point is the shortest & most consistently brutal track in "Copraphile" which simply offers less in the way of depth & nuance than the rest of the material. I still enjoy it but I prefer it when Psychrist reach a little further than that. The other five songs are all really strong without any of them ever really cracking into the top tier of the death metal spectrum. "Tears of the Deceased" is the only inclusion to have been revamped from the demo tape & it doesn't sound out of place here either. The best offerings are probably opener "Inhumation" & the excellent "Spiral" (my personal favourite) which appeared on the Warhead Records compilation "Warhead Records Volume 1‎" the following year. I can hear a few riffs across the album that remind me very much of some of Neuropath's early tracks (particularly in the drumming) so the influence that these guys had on me is pretty obvious to be honest. Our second demo "Desert of Excruciation" would end up being released on the same Warhead Records label as "The Abysmal Fiend" too which isn't a coincidence given the impact that it & the other early Warhead releases had on me & my band mates when we were frantically exploring the merits of the Aussie live scene.

Psychrist would become a pretty stable part of my musical diet off the back of this release & would also represent something that I aspired to match at some point. I've been very pleased to discover that that level of idolatry wasn't without merit during this revisit either because "The Abysmal Fiend" is an excellent death metal release in its own right & is possibly the best thing that the band accomplished during their decade-long recording career so it's deservedly earnt its place in the annuls of Australian death metal history in my opinion.

For fans of Backyard Mortuary, Abramelin & Misery.

I hadn't heard of English doom/death outfit Enchantment before when my younger brother Ben brought home of copy of their debut album "Dance the Marble Naked" back in 1994. We were both massively into the then thriving doom/death metal scene & would often surprise each other with new & exciting releases from faraway lands that ticked all of our preferred boxes, often after purchasing them cold or based purely on word of mouth or cover artwork. I think "Dance the Marble Naked" was probably a record store recommendation as the latest release from the metal subgenre that Ben was most passionate about at the time & I say this with a level of confidence because there's a definite flaw with Enchantment's first-up effort that I know frustrates Ben & would likely have prevented him from laying down his cold hard cash had he been given the opportunity to investigate the album's contents prior to making his purchase. I wasn't sure how big a role that flaw was going to play in my first revisit to this record since the 1990's but it's safe to say that I was a little guarded while going into listen number one this week.

"Dance the Marble Naked" was recorded at Academy Studios, West Yorkshire in February 1994 with Peaceville Records founder Hammy handling the production duties & doing a fine job of it too. Hammy had already produced a string of high-quality extreme metal releases from bands like Anathema, Autopsy, My Dying Bride & Paradise Lost so his credentials were pretty much perfect for the task at hand & you can hear a clear proficiency in the way he goes about his craft here with the album sounding crisp, clear & heavy. Enchantment had picked up a six-album deal with Century Media Records off the back of their 1993 "A Tear for Young Eloquence" demo tape which I've not heard before. Sadly though, they'd only get the chance to fulfill just the one record before unceremoniously splitting up, a state they'd remain in until they joined the modern trend of old 80's & 90's metal bands reforming many years later in 2019. They've since gone on to record their sophomore album "Cold Soul Embrace" a full twenty-eight years after "Dance the Marble Naked" first hit the streets but I'm yet to hear that particular release, perhaps due to my recollections of the struggles I experienced with the debut so many years ago. 

Enchantment's sound was not anything new for the doom/death scene. In fact, it was very much in line with what we'd already grown to know & love from the Peaceville Three with much more time spent on emulation than genuine creation. There are so many familiar moments on "Dance the Marble Naked" but the execution is nothing short of excellent so it's hard to be too critical, despite the regular feelings of deja vu I experienced throughout my three listens over the last few days. Enchantment rarely stray from the tried-&-tested doom/death model much either, although there are moments when they hit on a more classic death metal riff & head down that road for a while before reverting back to a doomier model. The gothic edge that their fellow countrymen had become known for is readily available here with the clean spoken word sections having clearly been borrowed from My Dying Bride's Aaron Stainthorpe & being quite effective too. Instrumental closer "Meadows" is the only track that deviates from the self-imposed confines of Enchantment's subgenre of choice as it takes more of a Smashing Pumpkins-style alternative rock direction & does it pretty proficiently too, making for a pleasant end to an otherwise consistently depressive doom/death record.

Now, that all sounds generally positive, doesn't it? But let's get to the elephant in the room which is front man Paul Jones & his cringe-inducing death bellows. I've heard a lot of death growls & grunts over the years but rarely have I heard them sound like this, nor have I wanted them too. Jones sounds completely out of his depth as he fumbles his way through a succession of forced & incompetent accompaniments to some otherwise more than serviceable instrumentation. Some tracks display his failing worse than others but even the stronger material included is considerably less effective for his involvement & I struggle to see how his band mates managed put up with him for so long to be honest. Actually, if I had to guess as to why Enchantment ended up splitting so early in their recording contract then I'd likely find myself pointing directly at poor Paul. It's a real shame because the other four band members do an excellent job here & show themselves to have a very solid understanding of what made the early 90's doom/death scene so exciting. If the band had of opted for almost any other death growler then I think they could have been quite successful, even if they had missed the boat a little bit by arriving on the scene a few years too late to be discussed in the same terms as the founding godfathers of their sound. The fact that none of the other band members would go on to contribute anything else of note to the metal world makes this an even greater tragedy.

"Dance the Marble Naked" includes eight songs & spans around 43 minutes in length with only one track (i.e. "God Send") having been re-recorded from the "A Tear for Young Eloquence" demo tape. The album opens with its clear highlight track in "Kneading with Honey" which left me with some hope for an improved experience this time, despite Jones' obvious failings. Sadly though, things would descend fairly quickly from there with only the previously mentioned "God Send" & "Meadows" offering me much in the way of appeal as I was simply unable to see past the uncomfortable feelings that Jones' inadequacies instilled in me. "Of Acorns That Gather" is a particularly hard pill to swallow but most of the other material showed great promise, only to see Enchantment's dreams of underground success unceremoniously dumped into a bottomless pit by their unforgiveable selection of Jones as their front man.

Ben has often mentioned "Dance the Marble Naked" as the finest example during discussions about otherwise high-quality records that have been completely ruined by some inappropriate vocals & I'm afraid that I have to agree on this occasion. Unfortunately, I don't think that this will end up being a matter of personal taste though & I challenge any doom/death tragic to say that they can accept this flaw that has ended up being a complete deal-breaker for me. The fact that the album has still achieved a reasonable score is simply a reflection of how competent the rest of the band are as well as how well produced Enchantment's debut was. 

For fans of Castle, Anathema & My Dying Bride.

My recent explorations of the earliest roots of the Australian extreme metal scene have seen me spending far more time with Melbourne hardcore punk outfit Vicious Circle than I'd bargained for. While I was certainly aware of the band & owned dubbed copies of a few of their albums as a kid, I never gave them much of my attention & can't say that I ever thought of them as a genuine crossover thrash artist. That position hasn't changed much in the current day either with none of Vicious Circle's early material fitting the bill, most of it sitting mainly in punk territory. I hadn't been exposed to their 1987 "Hope & Wait" E.P. before now though so I was hoping that perhaps it might be at least partially responsible for the band's metal status on other well-known websites. "Hope & Wait" was the title of a song from the Victorian's album from earlier the same year so the E.P. seemed to be more of an extended single & has been pretty hard to track down but I finally managed to locate it & have given it a few listens this morning, only to discover that it's a fairly inconsequential record in Vicious Circle's back catalogue.

The "Hope & Wait" E.P. includes four short songs spanning just fifteen minutes, three of which were already available on 1987's "Rhyme with Reason" album which was more of a compilation of material that was recorded at different points in Vicious Circle's recent past. Most of that material was drawn from 1986's disappointing "Reflections" sophomore album but there were also a couple of new tracks included with both of them reappearing here. The E.P. was recorded at Sound Concept Studios in 1987 & sports a fairly raw production job with a tinny guitar sound but it suits the material quite well & affords all of the instruments plenty of room to move. Tracks like "Rule 17" & "Turn to Stone" sounded a little out of place on "Rhyme with Reason" given that their production was so obviously different from the rest of the material but here we see the four songs sounding much more unified, even if Vicious Circle do explore a few different subgenres across the short tracklisting.

Once again, I do have to question Vicious Circle's claims to a crossover thrash tag because there's really only one song that fits the bill here in the fairly average "Turn to Stone". The opening title track sits somewhere between hard rock & heavy metal, "Rule 17" is more of a conventional punk rock outing & "Warhol Crazy" (the only new track included & the only reason for the more diehard punters to purchase "Hope & Wait") sees the band returning to their hardcore punk roots. Despite the variation, I think the hardcore punk tag fits much better as a generic tag for this collection of songs in much the same way as it did for Vicious Circle's last few releases. This record does sound a little more raw due to the tinny production job I mentioned earlier but the tracks themselves aren't wildly different from anything we'd heard from these punks previously, especially given that this was now the third Vicious Circle release to feature "Hope & Wait" which is a song that I still haven't taken much of a shining to. I do enjoy "Rule 17" & "Warhol Crazy" though which goes further to enforce my existing position that Vicious Circle should probably have simply stuck to their hardcore guns as they seem to be a better punk band than they are when they're exploring a wider musical palate with front man Paul Lindsay's snot-nosed delivery always ensuring that Vicious Circle's punk credentials are kept intact.

At the end of the day, I find it hard to find any reason why anyone would need to own "Hope & Wait". Perhaps the more obsessive fan might need to own the only new track here in "Warhol Crazy" but anyone else would be better served by investing in the "Rhyme with Reason" album as it's a more consistent & enjoyable record than this one & offers a lot more value for money too. I'm sure there was a reason for the release of "Hope & Wait" from a record company perspective but I'm not really seeing it personally. It's certainly not horrible but it is a little flat & doesn't do much to enhance Vicious Circle's existing reputation as one of the leaders of the Aussie hardcore scene.

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

Massachusetts-based noisegrind outfit Anal Cunt was first unceremoniously dumped on my life like a pile of concrete-infused shit through the tape trading scene of the early 1990's. I guess their moniker alone was enough to intrigue an excitable young teenager like myself who was buoyed by the fact that it'd shock all of those U2-worshipping conformists I called my friends. It certainly did the trick too with my dubbed cassette copies of Anal Cunt's "47 Song Demo", "88 Song E.P.", "5643 Song EP" & "Morbid Florist" E.P. all serving some level of usefulness, if only for shock value alone. They were still very much a side-hustle until Frank Munoz joined Neuropath & his fascination with ultra-extreme grind artists like this one would see us sharing many a drunken laugh with Anal Cunt releases as the catalyst. This all leads up to 1994's "Everyone Should Be Killed" debut album which would see Anal Cunt collaborating with my much-beloved Earache Records for the first time, a concept that saw me eagerly requesting a copy from my collection of traders. The result served its purpose too & I remember quite liking "Everyone Should Be Killed", if perhaps not as much as "Morbid Florist" which was still my A.C. release of choice & kinda nullified the chances of me returning to the album much over the several decades since. I guess I don't really need too many different examples of this style of music as there's not all that much to differentiate between each release given the sheer extremity of it all. So, this leads me into my first revisit to "Everyone Should Be Killed" in roughly thirty years. Let's see if it offers much in the way of musical merit now that I'm much older & wiser (weeellll.... older at least).

"Everyone Should Be Killed" differs in scope dramatically from the plethora of earlier Anal Cunt releases in that it's run time is far more extreme at an over-indulgent 58 minutes which begs the question as to just how much of this sort of stuff does anyone need in their lives. The early A.C. releases tended to be 7" singles that stuffed a kazillion tracks into a total run time of less than twenty minutes (often less than ten actually) while their debut album saw that duration being massively extended to a whopping 58 minutes of noisegrind battery. I honestly have to wonder if there's anybody out there that feels like that was justified because there's a whole bunch of repetition going on here that makes it easier to simply listen to the album in more easily consumed bite-sized pieces. The lineup that had been reduced to just the duo of front man/guitarist Seth Putnam (Adolf Satan/Full Blown A.I.D.S./Impaled Northern Moonforest/Insult/Post Mortem/Siege/Upsidedown Cross) & drummer Tim Morse (Grief) for the "Morbid Florist" E.P. has been maintained here & I can't say that A.C. would have benefited from additional collaborators at this point as these two certainly get the job done in no uncertain terms. Their collaboration with producer Tina Morrissey has also been extended from "Morbid Florist" & is just a successful too with all of this material receiving just enough clarity to allow the instrumentation to be deciphered while also combining it all into a super-harsh ball of burning, shit-covered bricks to peg through your least-favoured school teacher's window.

If you haven't heard Anal Cunt before then let me enlighten you as to what you're likely to experience (& it is an experience. Trust me on that.). The noisegrind subgenre that you've probably seen being bandied around the internet was pretty much dreamed up to describe Anal Cunt's bastardized maelstrom & "Everyone Should Be Killed" is a prime example of what it was originally intended to describe. What we have here is 58 songs that average around a minute in duration each although many of them are much shorter than that with a few longer tracks bumping that average up. The vast majority of them see Putnam & Morse simply pressing record & blasting into the most cacophonous wall of blast-beat driven noise you've ever heard in your life with Putnam making an attempt to touch upon every form of twisted vocal abhorrence the human form has ever dared to dream up. He reminds me a lot of Mike Patton's more extreme moments at times, such is the sheer ridiculousness of some of the sounds he comes up with but when he opts for a more traditional hardcore-meets-death-metal approach there are very few that can compete with his ferocity & this is one of the drawcards for Anal Cunt's "music" in my opinion. The other is the relentless savagery of Morse's blast beats which are really very precise for this sort of novelty act. I know he doesn't have to showcase much in the way of endurance on a record like this one but he really does reach some pretty impressive speeds here & with a consistent level of control & power being maintained throughout too. 

The tracklisting can be very daunting at first & it's not done any favours by the fact that the album kicks off with a succession of pretty similar songs that continue to bash you over the cranium in exactly the same way. Things become a little more interesting when Anal Cunt's sense of humour starts to kick in with a few silly cover versions of widely disparate & intentionally inappropriate songs from popular music culture. This sees the album being broken up a little & is taken much further by the inclusion of a number of lengthier sludge metal pieces through the middle of the album, most of which represent the highlights of the album in my opinion. In fact, I honestly think that A.C. would have made a stellar sludge act because they sound incredibly heavy when they slow things down with Putnam's vicious screams becoming the ultimate weapon (see the incredible "Song #5" as a prime example). That said though, the weaker moments on the album tend to correspond with the tracks where Putnam takes his vocal indulgences a little too far into general weirdness which sees some pieces sounding like a parody of what was essentially a parody to begin with. It was probably never intended to be taken seriously to begin with but I do need some level of musical value to be found in my music.

Still, I can't deny my attraction to the most extreme forms of music imaginable & this album certainly ticks that box. It doesn't matter that many of the songs had appeared on Anal Cunt's previous releases because a lot of this record sounds the same anyway. It's just that it offers the same sort of appeal as a fatal car crash. It's entirely unpleasant to view yet you can't take your eyes off it. That statement basically sums up the vast majority of the Anal Cunt material I've experienced over the years actually with this release being one of the better ones. I still think I favour "Morbid Florist" over "Everyone Should Be Killed" but I definitely think this is an underrated release in their back catalogue because I can't deny that I've enjoyed the experience on some level & I can't say the same about some of the band's early demos & singles. Still... there's no doubt at all that this is an inherently & intentionally divisive release that will not appeal to a large audience. I kinda dig it though so you can all go fuck yourselves. :)

For fans of Sore Throat, Fear of God & Sete Star Sept.

Melbourne progressive metal outfit Taramis hold somewhat of a prestigious position in the story of Australian metal. They were arguably the first metal act of any note to start messing with progressive influences which gave them a distinct point of difference while still maintaining enough of a traditional heavy metal component to ensure that they didn't lose any of the old-schoolers along the way. I didn't become aware of them until their 1991 sophomore album "Stretch of the Imagination" which I regard as being their finest work however my recent investigations into the early roots of the Aussie metal scene have seen me finally exploring their 1985 "Blood and Honour" demo tape & 1987 debut album "Queen of Thieves", neither of which are as thrashy as the band would eventually become. The Prowler demo was a decent enough heavy metal release although it was a lot less expansive & more conventional than the Taramis releases. It was clear that there was some talent there though so I was interested to see how that would develop on "Queen of Thieves". It certainly has too as this is a far more sophisticated release than the demo ever aspired to be.

The impact of Taramis' debut album is a little restricted due to an overly raw production job that was fairly typical of underground releases of the time. It was recorded at Saturn Studios in Melbourne with unknown producer George Simak who isn't exactly a household name in the local metal scene. The results are pretty much as you would expect too with the guitars sounding tinny & far too far back in the mix while the vocals of operatic front man Shane Southby boom out over the top with no restraint whatsoever. It's a fairly unforgiving position for the theatrical Southby whose soaring, air-raid siren style, high-pitched voice often struggles for control, even spilling over into the pitchy & cringe-worthy on tracks like "The Chosen" where he completely ruins what was otherwise a very solid progressive metal number from an instrumental point of view. He's a lot more successful on other tracks though & I've found myself enjoying a good three quarters of the tracklisting with heavy metal closer "My Life" being the only other failure. Taramis are at their best when they're at their most adventurous & prove themselves to be highly capable musicians along the way. Iron Maiden have clearly been a major inspiration for them & you can easily pick up the influence of their more progressive mid-to-late 80's records on "Queen of Thieves", particularly on the basslines of Danny Komorr who forms a formidable partnership with former Nothing Sacred drummer Dave Browne. The guitar solos of Craig Robertson aren't the most polished or theoretically correct you'll find but they are always interesting & fit the purpose quite well. It's kinda hard to pigeon-hole Taramis' sound at this point though as they tend to jump around a bit but I think a progressive power metal tag is probably the best fit, despite the consistent presence of traditional heavy metal. I think Southby's vocal style simply points me in the direction of power metal every time I question myself & there's a similar feel to Manilla Road in the atmospheres at times too.

The raw production job does limit how far Taramis can take you to an extent but I've found more than enough appeal in "Queen of Thieves" to keep me interested. It's probably just lacking those couple of classic tracks to draw your attention away from its flaws with only the excellent progressive metal anthem "Doesn't Seem" pushing up into second tier territory. The rest of the album largely sits back in the third tier for this type of music but it was an admirable first-up effort for Taramis nonetheless. History has shown that it did just enough to afford them a rare status amongst a local scene that was still quite immature in terms of the more progressive end of metal so it deserves its place in Australian metal folklore.

For fans of Adramelch, Iron Maiden & Manilla Road.