ZeroSymbolic7188's Reviews
You come to this album for 1 reason, and that's the title track.
"Angel Witch" by Angel Witch, from the album Angel Witch is one of the best metal songs ever recorded. It is a masterpiece of a song and a mandatory listen. However, the rest of this album is painfully mediocre, verging on boring. Unfortunately "Angel Witch" is the first song on the album, so you spend the whole album longing for the band to do something that good again, and it just never happens. It's like in Space Jam where the aliens sap all the talent from the NBA players. Those same aliens visited Angel Witch after recording that opening track. It's a shame really. So this is a 2.0 album that I am raising to a full star on the merits of that song alone.
How much you enjoy accept is going to have a bit to do with how you feel about Udo Dirkschnieder's vocal appraoch. He's got a high nasal timbre that's like a slightly more aggressive version of what Brian Johnson does for ACDC. Personally I am fine with it but there are better out there.
The album is top heavy, throwing the haymaker that is "Fast as a Shark" right out of box, and it is the heaviest thing on the album and a classic track. You also get the title track and "Shake Your Heads" in the first half. The rest of the album up to "Princess of the Dawn" is just filler, but Accept's filler is still better than most bands filler. These other songs aren't bad just not exceptional in any way.
"Princess of the Dawn" is a pretty good song but it's just a tad bit long for what it is. Accept is not a progressive enough band to be doing 6+ minute long songs.
All in all if you like metal or 80s hard rock you're going to have fun with this. It's a good album if not quite legendary. The stars on it shine very brightly.
Reviewing this because it is on the home page. It's the summation of everything that I hate in metal. Opening track is 3+ minutes of absolutely no metal-Imagine for a moment that you bought this for $12 bucks, ready for some metal, and then whole first track just pisses in your face like that? NICE!
When we finally hear some metal it's of the most generic shit imaginable. Vocalist has no defining character in his voice, just a generic half-assed grunt that sounds like he's trying to push out a... you get the idea. Then somewhere during the 2nd track the grim reaper of heavy metal-the blackest of all black angels: Soft feminine soprano comes in and Zero taps the fuck out like he's in the goddamn sharpshooter.
This is metal for people who like Evanessence but want to feel edgy while they listen to their shitty mall goth rock. An absolute warcrime.
In an attempt to beef up some of admittedly short and lack-luster reviews, I sometimes look to other sites for insight and wit to pull from, but in all of Metal Archives, and all of discogs there is absolutely nothing for this album. I have quite possibly put more time into this album than any man alive. I am not proud of this. It did not deserve as much as I have given it.
Yeah, I like this so much that I named myself after it.
If you've seen my review of "The Sound of Perseverance", many of the same things I said about that album also apply to this one. It's very hard not to do a copy and paste job here.
The long story short is that Chuck Schuldiner means an awful lot to me. I consider every Death album to be peak metal. The only reason I don't simply put all of their albums in my top 20 (and very possibly 1-7) is because I have to give other bands a chance. Each one is a different flavor of awesome, and I mean awesome in the literal sense "extremely impressive, and inspiring great admiration". The one that becomes your favorite is going to come down to personal taste, for me this is #2, but for many people it's the #1. I wouldn't even argue with that.
so, like I said copy+paste job, everything about this album is perfectly done. The mix, the vocals, the lyrics, the musicianship-everything is perfect. I mean don't rely on my limited vocab and poor grammar to get this thing across. Seek it out, turn it up, and let is speak to your soul. Listening to this album made me a better, more compassionate, spiritual, and contemplative man. Perhaps it can do some or all of that for you...
Or maybe its just really damn good music to throw into your mix. You can get spiritual about it, and many people do, but you can also throw it on and just rock the fuck out! This isn't Pink Floyd after all, this is METAL!
If you have the opportunity to see DEATH TO ALL live, absolutely do it. You're going to see really damn good musicians preserve Schuldiner's legacy. I saw them a couple days ago at time of post, and it was the greatest live experience of my life by a long way, and I've seen an incredible amount of live shows.
This album marks the end of my North Clan challenge, and with hope unlocks my 4th clan!
Forget about black metal, this is a beautiful masterpiece of music. This is the rare kind of music that emotionally moves me. Prior to this I listened to and reviewed Anno Domini from Tormentor and that was going to be a very difficult act to follow, and I expected to feel a bit flat at the end of the journey. Yet, here is Ulver with an absolutely gorgeous musical landscape, and an interesting story told-this is a concept album that tells a Scandanavian folk tail.
Sometimes in life, you have to realize when it's someone else's time to shine; The best way to hear this album for the first time is with the aid of Ben's review of it found here: https://metal.academy/reviews/651/285 . Ben has broken down each chapter of the story told in the album and done a better job of describing its contents than I ever could.
I usually find this kind of emotional response in funeral doom, but Ulver has done it here in the abbrasive, dissonant, and harsh world of black metal. Truly an astounding achievement and wonderful conclusion to the North Clan challenge. May the flame of black metal continue burning eternal, lighting our way through the harsh frozen wilderness of life.
Oh yeah this is reallly fantastic. It sounds like Slayer's Show no Mercy meets Bathory Under the Sign of the Black Mark. Blistering riffs everywhere, blast beats and some good ol fashioned thrash metal drumming, and the vocal prowess of Attila Csihar. PRE-Mayhem! Have I sold you on it yet? Full-Volume, No Skips. Lryical variety. I do wish the bass was a bit higher in the mix but you can't have everything-it isn't absent I just want more. I have theory that if a black metal band/album contains a reference to Elizabeth Bathory it will be great. Gonna test that later. You absolutely must listen to this album WOW!
BTW, there are three versions of the album I am aware of. I reviewed based on the 1988 studio version. There was a remaster in 2005, and the album art shown here is of a live recording that I think is from 2018.
Satyricon is a band with two distinct eras; the thin blasty variety found on this album which sounds like most things in this genre from that time, and the Black N Roll era of the music they play today.
What's that outside? Holy shit it's a bunch of corpse paint-clad purists marching on my lawn because I like the Black N Roll stuff better.
Adjectives: Low-fi, blast beat, tremelo guitar, raspy vocal. Did I get everything? No? There are medievel instrumental ambient passages in here too? Do they score extra points for that? Not from me.
It's the same monotonous drivel again, and this isn't Nemisis Devina, so you don't even get "Mother North" for your troubles.
Before I listen: I'm pretty excited to hear this one, because I know it's legendary. It's one of those icons that got away from me until now. I remember watching BANGERtv a couple years ago, and Sam Dunn was very insistent that Sarcofago should be considered as a black metal founder. He got voted down by his co-hosts and the viewers if I remember it all correctly. He seamed pretty dejected about this but he accepted the verdict. Let's see what Mr. Dunn was getting on about.
Well, it's fine. It's again of the overwhelmingly satanic breed of black metal. The vocals are at times a little bit lower than standard for Black Metal-dipping into death metal-esque growls. As a bonus, if you absolutely need a man to describe cunnilingus and fellatio in fairly vivid detail "Ready to Fuck" is the song for you! Personally, my own love life is such that I don't need somebody else to sing that to me. The odd thing about that song is that their actually isn't any fucking, just foreplay. You see they aren't fucking yet, just getting ready to fuck. I'm milking this one right now because it's the only departure from black metal cliche's on the album.
Anyways, history is doing them a lot of favors if this came out later nobody would talk about it. The thing is it wasn't even the most extreme thing of it's time. That's a misconseption. If you want the real roots of black and death metal I would point you in the direction of Medellin, Columbia as early as 1983 (4 years prior to this album) and encourage you to see what bands like Parabellum, Reencarnation, Blasphemia, Astaroth, and Pyrokenisis were churning out. Sorry Mr. Dunn.
It's a little bit better than dumpster fire tier, but it's nothing remarkable either.
My rating for this album is proof that I do put the music first. Samael biblically is the husband of Lilith, and the king of demons, and this album art may be a reference to the crown of thorns, but it also has a possible second meaning. You see my wife is one of the proud and few members of the Sphere-our resident Industrial clan, and fans of industrial music are sometimes reffered to as "rivet heads". I think the cover might be a clever double entrendre. Please do confirm or deny if this has come up in an interview somewhere.
With all the Satanic/Anti-Christian stuff I would usually be ripping this thing apart, but here's the thing. When the music is this fucking good, I don't give a shit what's being sung about. Black Metal meets Industrial Metal in a fairly uncommon marriage here and you get 30+ minutes of riffs and grooves, and every single one of them is top-notch. The production is still definitely black metal, but it's cleaned up a little bit more than most of the releases of this era. and my favorite feature of all; the bass is not only audible but capably played!
I don't think that you have to be a fan of black metal, or heavy metal at all even to enjoy this-which means some edgy basement dwelling purist is going to throw a grown man temper tantrum about how this isn't TRVE black metal. Yeah, Fuck that guy. TURN IT UP!
That band is called Rotting Christ. The album cover is a goat with a pentagram and then a depiction of 3 crucified figures. What could possibly be the subject matter of this?
Yup it's "cold beet", "small town", "dirt road" black metal again. This time the relentless blast beats have melody... sort of... I mean I guess. This type of thing really does only make sense to me through the lense of a pre-teen edgelord. If I think about being that age and wanting to piss off authority figures then I somewhat see the appeal of this, but all of that appeal is in the album art. Lyrically it appeals to the lowest common denominator (demonator?) of black metal fandom, and sonically it's half baked. Put it on your wall if you must, but keep it away from your turn table.
This is it. Possibly the most famous Black Metal Album of all time. How big is it? Well, I teach in a place where the primary artists among my students are SadaBaby, SexyRed, TGrizzley, and other tons of Detroit based trap rap, but they know this album. Is it coasting off of controversey or is there something to it? Let's find out!
It's actually really damn good. The bands gorey history might get a decent audience in the door, but all of that stuff happened in the early 90's, we would not talk about it in high regard 30years later if there was no substance. It has a unique production that somehow satisfies both fans of polished production and the ultra-raw stuff. It's got the blast beats, the razorsharp tremelo picked guitars, and atmosphere for days. It also has Athila Csaer on the microphone, and he's a force of nature. He actually performed this whole album accompied only by a smalll string ensemble, you can find this on youtube, and it's worth seeking out. You even get audible basslines!
Every track is great here, a no-skips affair for the black metal crowd. It's all just very tight, diabolical in all the right ways, and though Sathanas is in the album title, it doesn't lean on explicit references to Satan and hell, or take cheapshots at Christianity. Instead of hearing about Satan explicity, you just feel him everywhere in this album, like he's in the corner of the room behind you the whole time. Lyrically you get poetic descriptions of sinister forces; a fog that moves through a village and kills all the trees in it's wake, contemplation and committment to suicide only to die unremarkably and unremembered, a ghost that haunts the icy forest forever following the freezing moon, etc.
It's all far more frightening than anything by the overtly satanic bands.
In medieval times certain intervals of music were prohibited because it was believed to summon satan. I don't believe in such a thing, but if it were possible to summon the dark lord by playing music this would be a good album to do it with.
This was a new one for me, and I'm glad I found it. It's an absolute banger.
The music on this album is so good that I was compelled to look up the translations. To my pleasant surprise it's not just a bunch of satan slop. The lyrics here are definitely occult, but not outright satanic and that's the diference to me between mundane and interesting. You can find them here: https://ultimatemetal.com/threads/masters-hammer-english-language-translations.522936/ Good job lads!
Sonically, it sounds like Bathory mixed with the first two Metallica albums. Though it is never as fast or tight as the Kill 'em All or Ride the Lightning, that's part of the charm here. Instead the riffs have some room to breath, and this gives the album some grooves that remind me of traditional doom metal in a bizarre way.
Saving the best for last. the vocalist on this album is František Štorm, which I hope is pronounced something like "Frantic Storm", because that's his vocal approach. He throws every black metal technique you can ask for at the wall in this one. He is a fascinating man, a Czech born guy that likes to spend his time in India, and he's also a teacher, as I am. I would absolutely love to pick his brain. His voice has a very unique timbre that's hard to describe-something of a Black Metal Goblin. It's either going to put you off, or it's going to be the most fun voice you've heard in the genre. I'll leave you with a picture of the handsome devil: https://cdn.xsd.cz/original/e64695d280c8355a8ca284ca97f5a2a5.jpg
Now go enjoy this album. I certaintly did!
I love anything having to do with vampires. I also love SDBM, and this seams to be the prototype for that! This is absolutely sublime! I'm even going to give that silly ass cover a pass here.
You only thought early black metal had raw production values. This very well may not have had any production values. Where as a lesser band would just buy a cheap casette recorder, put it down in the middle of the room and press record, these guys went the extra mile by taking that recording, playing it through a telephone, and then recording that. I'm not even being satirical here, that is what the production sounds like, and it works. It works extremely well. The drums were made with just a bass drum and a pair of hitstix: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_Stix. Seriously, I had some as kid, they sound exaclty like the drums here. The guitar tone is nothing special but it sounds a little bit diferent again because of the production values, it's just unique enough to stand out. I'm spending a lot of words on the production because it is the engine that makes this whole album go. If this was polished, even a little bit the whole thing would fall apart.
There are a couple of other secret weapons here. Despite claiming to have made a "fuck you" record, I actually think they cared quite a bit. The lyrics occasionally do venture into satanic territory, which I insist is a crutch in the sub-genre, but it's not the identity of the album. What this album is really about is gothic atmosphere, and feeling like a vampire-like something that looks human, but is so horribly twisted on the inside that it really couldn't be farther from human. To get that across in lyric form is not easy to do, but it has been done expertly here. The guitar rifs as lo-fi, distorted, and harsh as they are, are also very catchy and memorable-again not the product of a musican who didn't care. This was carefully constructed thoughtful stuff-but at a time where a black metal musician didn't dare say as much.
My favorite sub-genre of black metal is SDBM, but outside of that niche, Immortal is my favorite straightforward Black Metal band.
Pure Holocaust however is a far cry from my favorite album. I prefer the later stuff that actually has melodies and production values (Sons of Northern Darkness and later). I like how rather than leaning on a Satanist gimmick they instead created this whole world of Blashyrk and it's ruler Mighty Ravendark. I also like Abbath's solo efforts. This however, hits me like just another low-fi blast beat fest. There are a couple of things that save it from being total dumpster fodder. Love it or Hate it, nobody else sounds like Abbath... except Popeye the Sailor but Popeye never made any Black Metal. The other thing that I appreciate most is that this manages to be a well-respected album even by Black Metal purists, without mentioning Satan. There is hate, infernal imagery, and demons, but there is not a single lyrical reference to Satan or Hell. There are no cheap shots aimed at Jesus or Christianity, because even in their infancy Immortal are a more creative band than that. For me this earns them a second star out of pure respect. Unfortunately there is no Blashyrk or Mighty Ravendark on this album either. That comes later.
I'm gonna tell ya a story about a young ZeroSymbolic. I was born into a farming family, my father ran the cattle operation, and my Uncle ran the pig operation. Now for the hog operation there was a shed up on a hill where the hogs were kept, and they basically do two things-eat and shit. Now all that shit runs down a sewage tube that empties out into a field, and over time it creates a big shit pond. That tube is the source of this variety of black metal. Some people love rolling in the shit, and I would never spoil their good time, but it's not a good time for me. Killing people and nailing naked women to crosses for shock value doesn't make in any better. Maybe if the music was good we wouldn't need such theatrics to bring attention to it?
I see descriptions like "Atmospheric", and "Avante-garde", and I already don't want to do it. Then I read the other reviews to know what I'm getting into.:
"it always caused me to lose my patience about halfway through no matter how many times I revisited it."
"Min tid skal komme is divided into two distinct parts, the atmospheric and drawn out first half, and the more uneasy and just flat out weird second half."
Now I'm so excited I almost shit myself. Well, let's get it over with...
Approximately 45 minutes later:
I want my fucking time back fam. Now, I've been criticized for not giving albums enough time and consideration, and not giving enough repeated listens, but fuck me mateys. Do you listen to a Lady Gaga, The Backstreet Boys, or Nicki Minaj album several times over just to make sure you "get it", or do you know what you like and don't like pretty readily? If you're being honest with yourself you know its the later. Just because something is tagged as being "Atmospheric", "Progressive", "Avante-garde", or "challenging" does not mean it is worth your time, and this piece of shit certainly isn't. I could go on and on, I thought about making a list of things you can do in 45 minutes that are better than this album, but then I'd still be spending time on this album.
This is a great sounding album with really great riffs. The problem is that they just go on, and on, and on. My guess is that they need to do this to make space for the vocals, but the vocals are in Norwegian, so I can't ride them through the monotony. This is the first offering from what goes on to be a legendary band. To this date they have 16 studio releases under their belts, and 8 Grammy WINS, not nominations but W's in the win the column, but I'm just rating this one. I'm going to guess this isn't the crown jewel of the bunch. I don't know their discography but I know that they become significantly more progressive over time, and they moved farther and farther away from what this album sounds like. Cut this thing in half, and then give me more fresh riffs to make up the length and we'd really have something here. As it stands the riffs are strong, but not stong enough to get away with for 10 minutes a pop.
The whole Emperor Schtick is that they added progressive and symphonic elements to the 2nd wave of black metal recipe. Now, if you follow my reviews and are familiar with my forum content, you will know that I absolutely hate symphonic metal. I like a little bit of keys and a violin in just the right place within the context of funeral doom, or DSBM and that's it. If I was being honest I would rate this album even lower, but if I did that the members of the band might burn down my local church and try to murder me. Two-stars it is, pretty generous ranking for a homophobic drummer during pride month no less. Yes Faust drummed on this album and yes he did stab a man to death for no other reason than that man was gay. He has to this date never apologized or showed remorse for this.
This is a tough one, because I admire a lot of things about this album. It manages to be progressive but not pretentious. It has very creative and sophisticated guitar work. It doesn't compromise it's black metal ethos while achieving those things either. It's somehow dark and brooding, black metal, and also really beautiful. Yet, I don't like it. This album to me is like looking at something that is objectively excellent, but not really desiring it. I cannot for the life of me put my finger on the element of this album that makes me feel so indifferent to it. This is a Lamborghini Diablo of a black metal album, the problem is that I'm a pick-up truck man.
Another album where the challenge is to say something fresh. I am not sure if fresh words will come but "lets find out". First and foremost this is a mandatory black metal album. The only reason I do not rate it higher is because Transylvanian Hunger exists and I like that album even more-it's flawless. What makes this so special you might ask? Well, countless bands in this genre try to create a frozen isolated atmosphere, but their feeble attempts just fall empty. This is how you do that kind of atmosphere the right way; this is every bit as cold and dissonant as anything else black metal has to offer, but it's also... fun and enjoyable to listen to. WHAT A CONCEPT! I think the difference here is that Darkthrone didn't set out with a formula to create that atmosphere, it was organic and just simply what came out of these musicians in 1992. The other ace up their sleeve is that they didn't throw away their punk rock energy. It's easy to forget that Black Metal has a lot of roots in aggressive punk-rock, but not on this album-it's the underpinning of all that chilly atmosphere. It is what is missing with a lot of the "atmospheric" black metal albums, and it is probably why so much of that stuff just sounds hollow to me.
If all that isn't enough go listen to "In the Shadow of the Horns" right now. It kicks all kinds of ass.
Also Fenriz is a fantastic human being in all of the ways that Varge sucks. It is a shame that latter is more well known than the former.
The hype surrounding this album has got to have everything to do with the person who created it, and not it's sonic merits. The man who made it is a murderer and Neo-Nazi. If it was not for his involvement in Mayhem, the church burnings, the murder, and so on I don't think anybody would give a genuine shit about this, and if you think I'm trolling, find a review anywhere that is actually a review of the music without a lengthily exposition detailing Vikernes, his ideals, and his history. If I must be forced to endure a Burzum album, at least let it be Filosofem. That album has Dunkelheit, and that's a good song. This album is 45 minutes long. 14 minutes (so nearly a third of it) is just atmospheric keyboards. Wow, so heavy, so metal! Sorry, I'm not buying the mythos. This is shitty music crafted by a shitty human being, and I'm rating it for what it is. Go get your Pitchforks.
Well, it's Atmospheric Black Metal, so it sounds cold like walking through a forest covered in deep snow and ice. The problem is that there is absolutely no cohesion here. You will not come away from this album with any memorable riffs or stand out parts except maybe the little prayer section. No care was given to smooth transitions, melody, or anything really musical to be honest. Just throw everything in the cauldron and hope that it bubbles up something descent. You go into an album like this because of the atmosphere it creates. Well, I live in Michigan off of Lake St. Claire. I know what it feels like to be in a place that is cold, wet, and dark. If I want that atmosphere I'll just go outside and have the real thing. This doesn't do anything for me. It just transports me to a place I already live in 10 months of the year, and it's summer damn it! Let me enjoy the 2 weeks of sunlight we get per year.
Clan Challenge 4/25.
Let's get one thing straight about this album. If you are sitting down with a glass of wine, whiskey, or beer, hunched over your computer desk getting ready to write your magnum opus of a review, as I imagine a lot of people probably are when they do this, this album is not going to work for you.
This album has one single minded pursuit: Brutality. It's here to kick your ass for 30minutes then peace the fuck out. If it could kill you, it would. This is an approach that translates best in a live setting. You aren't meant to analyse it, you are meant to feel it, you are meant to move. This is music for the moshpits, and once you put it in that context it's going to make a whole hell of a lot more sense.
Now obviously, Blasphemy weren't able to make it over the bridge and play this thing for me in my basement. However, I have do have two 1300watt speakers, and please believe I had to bust those bad boys out for this one, and the effect was enormous. It's an experience I will happily repeat many times over.
I would work out to this album, I would mosh to this album, I would fight to this album. I would have a WWE Royal Rumble styled knife fight to this album.
This is WAR METAL, SO PUT IT ON AND GO TO FUCKING WARRRRRRRRR!
Clan Challenge 3/25.
The challenge here is to try to say something that hasn't already been said. Let me first get my old man rant out of the way:
A lot of youngsters these days mistakenly believe that Mayhem were the founders of Black Metal, and that Euronymous pioneered the genre. This is false. Mayhem found the second wave of black metal. This is the true origin of Black Metal. I love Venom to death but despite the name of the song and album they were playing evil-thrash. Fuckin' love Venom though.
/end rant.
This really is the blueprint. This is the standard by which all black metal is compared to for me. It's uncompromizingly raw, nasty, evil, and relentless, but it has something else going for it that a lot of immitators are missing. This thing has a heart and soul. Quarthon is actually an amazing poet, he uses satanic and norse pagan imagery but he does it so much more elegantly than everybody else. He's kind of analogous to Chuck Schuldiner for me, an extreme metal founder that would become rapidly more progressive with each release. Quarthon was ahead of the game in 1987, and he's still ahead of most of today's artists.
More than just nasty noise, these songs have memorable individual parts, riffs, and structures. That guitar tone is also really unique it sounds like a buzzsaw, and that description gets used a lot when describing metal, but I think in this album it really does sound like one, and I think the cliche' probably arose from people attempting to describe this album. The production here is raw, but it does have a little bit, as opposed to other raw/DIY black metal where they just threw a tape recorder in the middle of the room. There was effort here, because as raw as it is-you can hear everything pretty clear. That is not easy to achieve and it is not an accident.
There you have it, the blackest of the black, the coldest of the cold, the satan-est of the satan, the pagan-est of the pagan. The Black Flame of Black Metal's Eternal Fire! BATHORY-UNDER THE SIGN OF THE BLACK MARK from 1987.
I remember Arckanum from a somewhat popular video on youtube that was titled "the worst black metal videos of all time" or something like that. One of them featured a man, presumably some sort of shaman running around the forest and making vocal sounds. I say sounds here because it wasn't singing by any means, but it also wasn't the usual black metal shriek either. It was something oddly captivating and unworldly. Perhaps, this strange figure had some mystic guidance to offer after all. Anyway I watched that video a bunch of times and showed it to a bunch of people who largely dismissed as an odditty, but I kept coming back. Eventually I learned that this creature went by Shamaatae, and the vocal noises where his reimagining of Old East Norse. He's a pretty fascinating guy, apparently a deeply spiritual man who writes books on "anti-cosmic" Satanism. I have no idea what that is, or how it differs from other kinds of Satanism, it sounds like bullshit to be honest, but I digress. Let's get on to the music.
Fuck, I can't get onto the music because spotify doesn't carry it... they carry many Arckanum albums but not this one... research time maybe it goes by an alternative name, or the tracks are available on a compilation some where. It was a limited release, only 1000 pressings. I can't find it, so I settle for youtube and accept that even if I like this album I will not be able to put it into any of my playlists. BUMMER.
Right away you know this going to be diferent, it spends some time building up the forest ambience, before kicking into the low fi blast beats, and tremelo picked guitar that are signatures of the genre.
So what puts this so high for me? Well, Shamaate is the star of the show. This album is expertly crafted; the ambience comes back here and there to keep you in the environment this album is about, but it isn't used as a crutch-it comes in and out sparingly where other bands would lean on this for entire albums. Shamataate is incredibly charismatic here too. His voice has something a little extra about it that distinguishes him from the heard. I can't quite put adjectives to it, you just have to hear it for yourself. He carries this album. You can't take your ears off him.
Then we come full circle back to that video I described to open the review. It's the video for the song "Gava Fran Trulen", and this song fucks! It's catchy as all hell and when he sings the title you will too. You cannot deny it.
There is the problem of that female vocal thing later, but here is why it get a pass: the way it's used here has meaning and context. She doesn't sing it's more of a chant which is in line with the mysticism this album conveys.
Album hits like this: You are lost in the forest. A Shaman appears and takes you into his cave. He explains to you the mysteries of the world, and his personal trials and tribulations. You can't decipher any of it, but you feel what he he says and you feel that it is important. During Gava Fran Trulen you join him in his strange chants. Then he leads you back out of the cave and konks you over the head. You wake up later home. Was it all some crazy dream? No. It was Fran Marder.
Clan Challenge Review #1. There are 25 Albums on this list. I am familiar with 16 of them. Playing it safe this time after foraying into uncharted territory with the last clan challenge, and paying the price. However, of the 9 unfamilar albums this was one of them. I come home from work, very eager and excited to hear something new. There is an inverted cross on the album cover, but it's Black Metal so that's 9/10 albums. I crank it up and start blastin' ready for... Jesus Christ 20 Tracks of some basement dweller bashing my spirituality? First song is a pleasant surprise. Lyrically it appears to be of the Nordic Pagan variety rather than the satanic variety. It has better production that I was anticipating as well. This might not be so bad. There is no bass guitar to be found, the guitar tones are standard black metal affair. The riffs are generic but solid enough. There is some ambience to dress it up a little bit, and this is the first sign that it's about to go wrong. "If we layer enough shit on top, maybe nobody will notice that we actually don't have anything new or exciting to offer." It's fine, it's fine, let's endure this and slap a 2.5 on it. Then the 2nd track starts... Acoustic guitars and a soft womans voice... YEAH THAT'S FUCKIN METAL!
No it isn't, it's shit, and I don't need another hour of this to know that it's shit. Into the dumpster it goes, hopefully never to return. Thankfully I know that Arckanum is up next.
I'm concluding my adventure for the Horde writing a line that I fear I've written too many times, but it still stands.
Technical Death metal-The musicianship is inarguably fantastic. It's just a shame that there aren't any songs. It plays like a collection of very technical practice exercises thrown together, and there was a point in time when I was younger that I probably would have been into it, but I'm older now, and I've heard people play fast and technical. I've heard it so much that the novelty has worn off, and this album has nothing else to offer.
This is what I want from death metal. It's super fast, great riffs, nothing pretentious, and the lyrics are full of raw gruesome gory content! I also just love the tonal qualities of the instruments here. Pretty good album art too.
In an alternate timeline Per Yngve "Pelle" Ohlin doesn't blow his own head off. He kicks Euronymous out and steers Mayhem toward death metal. The end result sounds something like this. Deathcrush pt. 2.
With repeated listening I think this will claw it's way into my top 20.
I saw another Canadian Death Metal band last night, that being Montreal's CRYPTOPSY. This sounds like the diet version of that. If you are into that brand of Death Metal this still might hit for you, but while I appreciate the technicality of Cryptopsy they are not a "go to" band for me, so I'm just not feeling the lesser version here.
There are some flashes of really good guitar work in this, and I think if the songs were about half the length it would have a lot of potential, but these tracks are 8 to 11 minutes long and there just isn't enough craftsmanship to keep me interested that long. If one could cut and past the best parts of this album it would make for some dazzling straight forward metal, but as is those parts are either repeated to much or have vast areas of emptiness between them.
This is mediocrity in audio form. I have nothing good to say about it, I have nothing bad to say about it. It simply exists. No seriously, I am going backward now through my reviews and trying to do better justice to the albums in the modern death metal era, and I have absolutely nothing for this. It makes heavy metal noises, so that's good, but I listened to it two days ago from beginning to end, and I can't remember a damn thing about it.
This is an odd one for me, because it has a lot of elements that I like; foreboding atmosphere, orchestral elements, and death metal, and yet there is something amiss. I was looking forward to this one because on prior playlist I enjoyed the hell out of EEONTPON. I'm going to chalk it up to me being a doom-head at heart. There is a lot to like here, and I may revisit it one day, but on the day of this review I'm just not quite connecting to it.
Earlier today I reviewed an album by Mercenary where I stated that it was pretty much perfect, I just longed for a little more brutality.
Scar Symmetry comes out with this and delivers a similar experience except this time it's a little heavier, and we get harsher vocals, so this is perfect! I would explain the sound of this album and it's subject matter to be a heavier, and darker version of Fear Factory's output. I introduced this album to a friend of mine who is getting his metal 101, and loves Fear Factory. He loves this too. I love this, and would hope you give it a shot to fall in love with as well. It's Pitch Black Perfection!
Portal is an experimental noise band steeped in atmosphere.
What is that atmosphere? Imagine Night of the Living Dead, but replace all the Zombies with mind flayers from the Dungeons and Dragons Universe, with Cthulhu himself lurking in the skies above.
It is not an atmosphere I particularly care to visit but if it does tickle your fancy I can't say that anything else really sounds like this. Hear it at least once, and then make your own decision. I'm good.
It's Nile, so it's tech-death in Egypt. Anyway Nile is an institution and you either like them or you don't, but they sound the same every time. They don't really do it for me personally, so I'll put my review dead center at 2.5 out of respect. I'm probably not the guy you want to get your Nile critique from.
What you get here is an excellent offering that has no skips. Everything about this is near perfect. The production is crystal clear and the mix has space for everybody to shine, and shine they do. These songs are heavy and catchy.
So why not 5 stars? It's the vocals for me. They are well done so don't get the wrong idea, but they are very much inspired by power metal, and that's not my cup of tea. I would have liked something just a little bit more brutal, but this is absolutely knit-picking on my part.
Definitely give this a listen, it's not the heaviest thing on earth, but it's still an absolute banger.
Yes they can play very fast and technical. No they cannot write music I actually want to listen to. I did that thing where I give it a second listen to make sure I understand what tech-death sounds like... Yup still don't like it 10years and going strong. I lowered it a half a point for having wasted my time for twice as long now.
Borrowing from other in an attempt to stretch this one out.
Daniel writes; " if you love highly technical, complex & precise yet still extreme metal then "Feeding The Abscess" should be a no-brainer."
--Notice how all of that speaks to the speed and ability of the musicians, but absolutely no emotional reaction to the music?
Unhindered writes; "Overall it doesn't work for me", then awards it 4 and half stars. Why?
In the year 2025, the internet is full of fast, technical musicians, simply being fast and technical is not as special as it once was, and it never was as special as writing a good song. There are no good songs on this album.