Sonny's Forum Replies

Hi Ben, could you add the following please:

Relentless - USA (Chicago)

John Gallow - USA

Pombagira - UK

Agent of the Morai - UK

Hi Ben, could you add Vin de Mia Trix's last album, "This Landscape Is Alive" (2025), please.

Hi Ben, could you add the new Exumer album, "Death Mask Messiah", please.

Hi Ben, could you add the new Atomic Aggressor album, "The Occult Forces", please.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. As it is a three playlist month, this enables me to get an early start.

For October:

Dissentient - Black Galactic (from Black Galactic 2026)

I will probably need a prog death track to help cover the bases, so I am happy to accept this suggestion. Thanks, Saxy.

No more suggestions from non-clan members, though, please.

For October

Vreid - From These Woods (from The Skies Turn Black, 2026)

The North playlist is already well served with four participating members, so I am not sure if I will be able to accomodate your suggestion, Saxy. I will revisit when I have all suggestions in.

For the October playlist:

Fires in the Distance - Of Radiance and Levitation (from Circadian Promise, 2026)

I am not generally taking suggestions from outside the clan membership, Saxy, but I will try to include your suggestion this once.

Thanks fellas. Nice one - I can get an early start on this one now.

Just listening to this on a sorry-ass bank holiday Monday afternoon and just had to post that the Sabbat track is totally kick--ass. I have never really given them much ear time before, but I am gonna have to rectify that.

Could you add rather good new US death doom act Solystalgia please Ben.

The Doors - "Strange Days" (1967)

The Doors' sophomore album is a step down from their self-titled debut from earlier the same year in my opinion as I don't think the highlights reach the same heights. It's still not a bad listen though with Jim Morrison's undeniable cool factor easily managing to carry even the more strange instrumental excursions. I particularly enjoy "You're Lost Little Girl", "People are Strange" & "I Can't See Your Face in My Mind". There's a clear flat section that contains "Unhappy Girl" & Horse Latitudes" though. Overall, "Strange Days" is worth a listen but I wouldn't say that it's as essential as it's made out to be.

For fans of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jefferson Airplane & Love.

3.5/5

I pretty much agree. ""When the Music's Over" is a brilliant track too, though. Not much does live up to the debut album - one of my Sixties favourites, but Morrison Hotel comes close. 

A really nice-looking vinyl boxset of all the Bolt Thrower albums from Realm of Chaos onwards (7 albums) is due out in October. Hmm... I may be tempted!

Update: Sold out already, dammit.

I think "Iowa" is the best of the five Slipknot albums I'm familiar with.

Agreed.

Slipknot's Iowa hits fuckin' 25 today. Wow, I wasn't even 40 back then. Where the hell did a quarter of a century go? 

Hi Ben, please add spanish doom band Misty Grey and UK's Crowned in Earth. Thanks.

Hi Ben, could you add polish atmospheric / depressive black metal band Nyctophilia please.

I have just checked out the Fear of Domination album and the only bit of it I could engage with was when the singer yells "just make it go away" during "Last Words". Maybe Rob Zombie won't sound so bad after all.

I first took notice of Suffering Hour with their 2021 album, "The Cyclic Reckoning", which I found interesting for its incorporation of influences from Eighties' gothic rock into its blackened death maelstrom. This EP is a different beast however, the gothic element to the guitar sound has been completely stripped away and replaced with dissonant guitar leads and the tempos have been ramped up, resulting in a more immediately visceral and in-your-face experience. The production here is somewhat thicker and muddier than previously and when coupled with such frantic and hectic material it kind of feels to me like Gorguts playing War Metal. I have only recently really been converted to the charms of disso-death (mainly thanks to Ulcerate) and the version of that employed here by Suffering Hour works really well with the rampant black metal blasting. The opening title track is probably the most accessible track on the EP and does still exhibit a little bit of the gothic feel of earlier material, but after that it is pretty much a relentless maelstrom with the sub-two minute "Anamnesis" that follows "Impelling Rebirth" leading the charge. At less than fifteen minutes total runtime, none of the five tracks on offer here are likely to become boring, but that is even less likely when you hear how much is going on within such short compositions.

At my advancing age, I generally prefer to stick to stuff I suspect I will enjoy, but I am glad I have persisted with delving into more dissonant styles because sometimes a record like this comes along and revitalises my jaded perceptions with a good old-fashioned (metaphorical) slap in the face.

4/5

As an aside, I have messaged Ben about this so hopefully he will rectify it, but this isn't actually in The Horde, even though it has a death metal primary tag, hence the reason I chose it for a Horde feature. I am guessing this is just a bug or oversight of some kind.

The Sphere has no albums with the minimum required number of ratings necessary for inclusion in the other clans awards.

Only two albums have more than a single rating:

Fear of Domination - Katharsis

Rob Zombie - The Great Satan

There are only two more that have any ratings at all:

Bong-Ra - Esoterik

Genghis Tron - Signal Fire

To be fair, there are only 12 releases from 2026 on the site for the Sphere which, when compared to The North with almost 280, puts it at a decided disadvantage as far as people outside the clan checking them out. I will try to listen to a few out myself, although I'm not sure I can manage a Rob Zombie album - he makes better movies than records.

Similar to The Fallen, The Revolution has a clear leader at this stage with Converge crushing it. Four albums have the required minimum number of ratings:

1. Converge - Love Is Not Enough [4.43]

2. Sylosis - New Flesh [3.63]

3. concealer. - This Room Could Be Heaven [3.33]

4. ERRA - Silence Outlives the Earth [3.13]

Several other releases that require a single additional rating to qualify include another Converge album:

Crystal Lake - The Weight of Sound

DevilDriver - Strike and Kill

Fear of Domination - Katharsis

Converge - Hum of Hurt

Haste the Day - Dissenter

Atreyu - The End Is Not the End

Worm Shepherd - Dawn of the Iconoclast

That Kaatayra record is barely bm in my book so has been given an appropriate rating of 2.

I have listened to it today and I agree that it is barely metal at all apart from the vocals and percussion, but it presents a bit of a dilemma because I still actually like it, so I have given it a 3.5.

As a non-metal record that's a fair score but I think it should be in that Hall thing for a decision.

I don't think that would make much difference as far as the year-end awards go because it would probably sit in the hall for about five years!

That Kaatayra record is barely bm in my book so has been given an appropriate rating of 2.

I have listened to it today and I agree that it is barely metal at all apart from the vocals and percussion, but it presents a bit of a dilemma because I still actually like it, so I have given it a 3.5.

Immolation - "Descent" (2026)

Since I found my way to the Horde and I finally got to grips with death metal, Immolation have been a band that stood out to me as being something a bit special. Not special in an innovative, envelope-pushing way, but in a truly-getting-it, well-oiled machine kind of way. Their songwriting chops are unbelievably good and although they don't strive to break new ground, they always manage to make their tracks interesting and vital and seem to unerringly hit the spot with me. It often feels like they tap into an earthiness that feels redolent with the iron scent of spilled battlefield blood and which has the ability to make this old man feel properly alive and alert to the endless incoming of lethal death metal riffs and the hot shrapnel of searing solos. They are also incredibly consistent and while some of their releases may be genuine standouts, I haven't yet heard an Immolation album I didn't enjoy. The last couple, "Atonement" and "Acts of God" were really solid efforts that once more gave me enough of a fix to carry me through until the next one came out, but in "Descent" I think they may have turned in their best work for quite some time, an album able to sit comfortably beside "Close to a World Below" or "Unholy Cult".

The production is crisp and clear and allows the band to showcase how tight they are, allowing perfect expression of the brutality of the riffs and rhythm section. The drums in particular seem really well recorded, the kicks, snares, toms and cymbals all perfectly distinguishable and seeming to come at the listener from all angles, surrounding them in a percussive straightjacket that holds them in place while the riffs pummel the shit out of them. I love filthy-sounding, abyssal, old-school shit above almost all other styles of death metal, but Immolation achieve a similar effect on me with a clarity and precision normally employed by more technically-focussed acts that speaks volumes for their ability to generate a brutally evil atmosphere by sheer skill, not having to turn to production tricks to achieve it or to hide technical deficits.

So, a question I am sure many will ask is "do Immolation do anything new on "Descent"?" Well, no, but what they do do they do better than virtually anybody else, so does that mean you should listen to this? Abso-fuckin'-lutely it does. Is it better than their first five albums? No, not really, but if they aren't to hand or you now know them so well you can replay them in your sleep, then "Descent" will give you a fresh take on an old friend and should satisfy your craving for quality no-frills death metal.

4.5/5 [90/100]

So far there are six contenders that have reached the minimum number of ratings:

1. Cryptic Shift - Overspace & Supertime [4.13]

2. Lamb of God Into Oblivion [4.00]

3. Zerre Rotting on a Golden Throne [3.83]

4=. Kreator Krushers of the World [3.63]

4=. Sylosis The New Flesh [3.63]

6. Wildhunt Aletheia [2.83]

Others with potential to challenge when they achieve the required number of ratings are:

DevilDriver - Strike and Kill

Hellripper - Coronach 

Ripper (CHL) - Towards Rebirth (my personal pick of these bubbling under)

Rob Zombie - The Great Satan

Deathraiser - Forged in Hatred 

Exodus - Goliath

The early pace setters in the North for Release of the Year are:

1. Kaatayra - Caminhos de água [4.50]

2= Fire Magic - Memories of Fire [3.63]

2= Fuath III [3.63]

4. Ruins of Beverast, The Tempelschlaf [3.60]

5. Archvile King Aux Heures Désespérées [3.50]

6. Misotheist De Pinte [3.17]

7= Gorrch Stillamentum [3.00]

7= Woe Legacies of Human Frailty [3.00]

Other highly rated releases that haven't accumulated enough ratings yet are:

Transilvania - Magia posthuma

Hellripper - Coronach

Panopticon - Det hjemsøkte hjertet

Saidan - Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memory's Wrist

Unverkalt - Héréditaire

Worm - Necropalace 

Mayhem (NOR) - Liturgy of Death

That is very prescient, Daniel as I have a track from this very album cued up on next month's North playlist. Darkspace definitely took a step up with this one and I think they maintained that quality on the two subsequent albums as well.

That definitely sounds like one I need to check out Vinny. Thanks for the heads up.

I have checked out the Cryptic Shift album and I hear why it is so well liked by so many, but I am not as on board with it as most at this point. Now I fully accept that it isn't an album that you can jump to conclusions about, certainly after only a single listen and I do intend to revisit it soon. However, for me, there is just so much going on that I can't really get my head round it and it is very long. Ironically, though, the track that jumped out at me is the longest of them all, "Stratocumulus Evergaol" which gave itself enough space (as in half a fucking hour) to make all that was going on there less jarring and more natural sounding, feeling like a genuinely epic piece of metal. I suspect this may be an album that might just 'click' with me all of a sudden, a bit like Archspire did, so I certainly haven't given up on it yet. Three and a half stars from me for now, but that may change at a future date.

There are ten releases from the Infinite's 2026 release schedule that have already hit the minimum number of ratings. Interestingly, a number of them also lead the rankings in several other clans as well as here in The Infinite.

1. Neurosis - An Undying Love for a Burning World [4.50] (#1 by virtue of higher number of ratings) Also #1 in The Fallen

2. Kaatayra - Caminhos de água [4.50] #1 in The North

3. Cryptic Shift - Overspace & Supertime [4.33] #1 in both the Horde and The Pit

4. Protest the Hero - Within [4.17]

5. Myrath - Wilderness of Mirrors [4.00] #1 in The Guardians

6. Crimson Glory - Chasing the Hydra [4.00]

7. Plini - An Unnameable Desire [3.83]

8. Urne - Setting Fire to the Sky [3.38]

9. Stam1na Apnea [3.33]

10. ERRA Silence Outlives the Earth [3.13]

It is quite incredible that releases that sit under The Infinite umbrella are leading in six out of the nine clans. I guess the Metal Academy likes progressiveness in their metal more than is immediately apparent.

The Infinite is another clan from which I have listened to nothing so far this year (although I have got Cryptic Shift on as I type this) so please post any red hot recs for myself and anyone else who is interested to check out.

So far ten releases have gained sufficient ratings to be considered and currently sit thus:

1= Cryptic Shift - Overspace & Supertime [4.33]

1= Fires in the Distance - Circadian Promise [4.33]

3. Immolation - Descent [4.25]

4. Slaughterday - Dread Emperor [3.83]

5. At the Gates - The Ghost of a Future Dead [3.67]

6= Fossilization - Advent of Wounds [3.50]

6= Inferi - Heaven Wept [3.50]

6= Invictus - Nocturnal Visions [3.50]

9. Ectovoid - In Unreality's Coffin [3.13]

10. Enshine - Elevation [2.67]

I have listened to and rated a few of these but, tellingly, not the first two. I have just got my vinyl copy of the Immolation album and that would be my pick for the top at the minute, with Invictus and Fossilization not far behind.

Other decent-scoring albums in need of at least one further rating are:

Archspire - Too Fast to Die

Funebrarum - Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence

Ripper (CHL) - Towards Rebirth

Exhumed - Red Asphalt

Growth - Under the Under

At the Gates - The Ghost of a Future Dead

A recent Fallen feature release is 10 years old today. Formed after Gates of Slumber split, this was Wretch's only full-length release and damn fine it is too. Also celebrating a decade of existence is the serially underrated The Wounded Kings final album "Visions in Bone". Ironically, it is my least favourite of their releases (and the only one on Spotify), but it is still a decent slab of doom metal.

At this point six releases from The Guardians have received three or more ratings and are:

1. Myrath - Wilderness of Mirrors [4.00] (Myrath is #1 by virtue of more ratings than Crimson Glory)

2. Crimson Glory - Chasing the Hydra [4.00]

3. Lovebites - Outstanding Power [3.50]

4. Edenbridge - Set the Dark on Fire [3.33]

5. Exxûl - Sealed Into None [3.17]

6. Wildhunt - Aletheia [2.83]

There are several bubbling under with a couple of ratings each and the following actually have higher average ratings than Myrath:

Therion - Con orquesta

Iron Savior - Awesome Anthems of the Galaxy

Beyond the Black - Break the Silence

Masterplan - Metalmorphosis

Personally, it appears I haven't rated anything from this year in The Guardians so if anyone has any hot recommendations that I should check out then I would be glad to hear them.

The gorgeously melancholic true Fallen classic from Shape of Despair is a quarter century old today.

At 2/3 of the way through the year, only four releases have so far achieved three or more votes. 

These are:

1. Soen - Reliance [3.38]

2. Karnivool - In Verses [2.83]

3. Gaerea - Loss [2.67]

4. Mirrorcell - Long Nights in Lovescape [2.50]

None of these have a particularly high site rating, so there is plenty of scope for others to stake a claim.

Some other releases that have gained at least one decent rating are albums by Alter Bridge, Clawfinger, Evanescence, Black Veil Brides, Dead Air Divine and Machinae Supremacy. Let us know what you think we should all be checking out from the Gateway this year.

There is currently an obvious leader in the race for The Fallen award with Neurosis' "An Undying Love for a Burning World" having both the highest site rating (4.5) and the most number of ratings (as well as sitting at #11 on the all-time charts at the minute). I haven't checked it out myself yet, but expect to pretty soon.

1. Neurosis - An Undying Love for a Burning World [4.50]

2= Ennui - Qroba 3 [4.33]

2= Fires in the Distance - Circadian Promise [4.33]

2= Warning - Rituals of Shame [4.33]

5. Draconian - In Somnolent Ruin [3.80]

6. Ruins of Beverast - Tempelschlaf [3.60]

7. Urne - Setting Fire to the Sky [3.38]

8. Exxûl - Sealed Into None [3.17]

9. Temple of Void - The Crawl [3.17]

10. Lone Wanderer Exequiae [3.00]

My personal recommendations so far would be Ennui, Warning, Temple of Void and Lone Wanderer, but I have a whole lot of catching up to do as I haven't given new releases as much attention as they deserve so far this year.

Another six-year old thread I have dug up from the abyssal depths. To be fair, though, at this time I was very much a newbie to death metal and wasn't even a member of The Horde at this point and only now feel confident enough to pass judgement on two such iconic albums. I love me some Pestilence and Martin van Drunen is one of my favourite extreme metal vocalists. On "Consuming Impulse" the Dutchmen had upped their game and turned in a career best release that sits pretty well up on my favourite death metal releases list. However, to pit it against one of, if not the, defining releases of a genre as huge as death metal is a little bit unfair and, let's face it, not many would stand a chance in such a match-up. Its a bit like the Muhammad Ali vs. ex-soldier Richard Dunn fight in '76 (look it up kids), Dunn put up a plucky display but was completely out of his depth and got his arse handed to him by Ali. So, ultimately what I am saying is that Pestilence are the *Richard Dunn of death metal!

*They aren't - they are much better than that.

Altars Of Madness 3 - Consuming Impulse 0

I was digging through the archives and unearthed this thread from six years ago, so I thought I would compare my top 10 now to my top 10 then:

1. [3]Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion (1985)

2. [1]Slayer - Reign in Blood (1986)

3. [NA] Metallica - Ride the Lightning (1984)

4. [7] Dark Angel - Darkness Descends (1986)

5. [NA] Demoniac - So It Goes (2020)

6. [NA] Anthrax - Among the Living (1987)

7. [2] Metallica - Master of Puppets (1986)

8. [4] Kreator - Coma of Souls (1990)

9. [NA] Possessed - Seven Churches (1985)

10. [8] Sacrilege - Behind the Realms of Madness (1985)

These have dropped out of my top ten altogether:

Sabbat - History of a Time to Come (1988)

Razor - Violent Restitution (1988)

Kreator - Pleasure to Kill (1986)

Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death (1990)

There is a quite considerable variation from my old list to the latest, but I think all this proves is that I don't know my own mind from one year to another.

Still, I have listened to all these relatively recently and I am pretty confident that this reflects my current preferences.

Here's a bit of a weird one. We are two-thirds of the way through the year and looking at the 5+ ratings chart, there are only two entries in the top 500 from the current year, Neurosis and Converge, which are sitting in the pretty lofty positions of 11th and 23rd of all time. OK, fine, both are bands that have very committed fans, but for there to be nothing else from 2026 in the top 500 while the two that are sit so high seems a bit of an anomaly to me. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Hi Ben, could you add the following please:

Warcoe - doom / trad doom Italy

Bastard Lord - doom / stoner USA [Their S/T is listed on RYM as a demo, but it had a proper release on CD on Twin Earth Records three months after its Bandcamp release and metal-archives lists it as an official EP].

Caskets Open - doom / trad doom Finland

According to AI, "pizza thrash" is a semi-derogatory term for modern crossover & thrash metal bands that reject serious or dark themes in favor of fast, party-centric music, 1980s retro aesthetics & lyrics about beer, cartoons & pizza. See Municipal Waste, Lich King & Gama Bomb as examples.

There has always been a section of the thrash scene that has embraced that philosophy and, although those themes don't particularly appeal to me personally, I don't hate the bands that do, yet there seems to be quite a vitriolic disdain for them amongst certain members of the metal community. Is this what we would call gatekeeping, similar to Metal Archives 'mallcore' aversion?

Checking this out as I type this and yes, I definitely get the comparisons with Neuropath. I am really digging what I hear and I think the earlier brutal death metal scene is something I am going to have to dig into deeper as it is an area of death metal I haven't covered so much. I often feel I have got so much catching up to do when it comes to death metal!

Note: Overkill's "Feel the Fire" would have made the list at number seven if I wasn't so pedantic about including their 1985 self-titled E.P. as their first proper release.

And also, I'm gonna leave a hot take here by saying that at the time "Bonded by Blood" hit the shelves it was the best metal record ever released up to that point in time.

The same is true for Celtic Frost, though, maybe even more so, as later re-issues of "Morbid Tales" are considered to be full-lengths. I think I am going to have to revisit Overkill at some point because I have never really taken to them that much. Maybe it is because they didn't register on my radar at the time and so I have only related to them in hindsight.

What the hell happened to Exodus, though, because you are right, Daniel, "Bonded By Blood" is a great record, but after that they kind of dropped off a cliff whereas nearly all major thrash bands went onwards and upwards (at least for four or five years anyway). I have often seen them labelled 'pizza thrash'. I have no idea what that phrase means, though. Could someone enlighten me please?

Ripper - "Towards Rebirth" (2026)

It has been a decade since Ripper's terrific "Experiment of Existence" album was released and there have been wholesale lineup changes with mainman, guitarist and vocalist Patricio Spalinger, the only member remaining from the lineup that recorded that sophomore album. For most of the intervening decade Patricio has been concentrating on his Venus Torment solo project as well as featuring in several other outfits such as Slaughterhousse and The Missings, but has now decided that the time is ripe for a new Ripper offering. He has assembled an impressive array of talent this time around with guitarist Nicolás Young (Critical Defiance, Demoniac) and drummer Javier Buzeta, who appeared on Mayhemic' s excellent 2024 "Toba" album, being joined by bassist Tomás Barriga of heavy metallers Axe Battler.

If you are in any way familiar with the chilean thrash scene then "Towards Rebirth" will be instantly familiar. After a short 'spooky synth' intro we are treated / subjected to an onslaght of breakneck riffs, pulsating basslines and screaming solos accompanied by gruff, bellowing vocals and an intensity that references death metal as much as thrash, with it all barely seeming to hold together as it tears past as a gale of energetic velocity. Buzeta sets the pace, battering away in a flurry of machine-gun double kicks and pulverising thrashbeats that goad the riffs into a demonic charge, ably bolstered by Barriga's busy and kinetic basslines. The two combine inordinately well and are as much a force of nature as a metal rhythm section. The riffs are mighty beasts indeed and are actually quite memorable and melodic, despite the fact that they hurtle past like an express train, providing more than enough ammunition for a damn good neck wrenching. As we have come to expect from chilean thrashers, the solos are where they like to go to town, with hyper kinetic shredding and smoking fretboards being the order of the day, providing the artistic flights of fantasy in contrast to the tightly focussed ballistics of the riffs and rhythm section. The album is, arguably, slightly front-loaded with the final three tracks from the instrumental "The Secret Dawn" onwards not feeling quite as awesome as the rest, but even these three are still pretty decent thrash workouts.

What I think appeals to me most about the chilean scene is that it takes the intensity and vitriol of the older, late eighties and early nineties, deaththrash records and transforms them with ultra-tight focus and undoubtedly superior technical skill into an even more impressive beast and, with ultra clear production, finally realising the potential that so many of those earlier records possessed. In so doing albums like "Towards Rebirth" don't just rehash a thirty-plus year-old trope, but present a thorougly modern sound that taps into the vigour and energy that thrash once possessed in spades, but which long ago had started to feel staid and stilted.

4.5/5 [86/100]

Midryasi - Corridors (2009)

Midryasi are an italian doom metal crew from Lombardy and they take their name from a condition which results in excessive dilation of the pupils, ususally from disease or chronic drug use and the music they produce tends to suggest they are referencing the latter cause rather than the former. "Corridors" is their sophomore full-length, although the self-titled debut is often cited as a demo rather than an official debut album. They take Sabbathian traditional doom metal and infuse it with a heavy late-60s / 1970s psychedelic vibe for a very trippy take on doom metal. This is achieved chiefly through a liberal layering of Sixties' Hammond-like keyboards and loose jam-style guitar solos alongside some pretty funky riffs. The band quite often choose to employ layered gang vocals which does feel quite anachronistic in music that is attempting to recreate the atmosphere of the late Sixties. The psychedelia-infused leads and often pretty groovy riffs give "Corridors" more of a positive atmosphere than we would normally expect to hear on a doom metal record and, as such, it may well appeal more to stoners than to dyed-in-the-wool doomheads. That is until the mightily filthy riff of closing track "Another Hell Within (Space Suite Version)" kicks in and causes the ears of those with darker preferences to prick up. There is still a psychedelic edge to the track, but this feels like the dark underbelly of psychedelia summed up by Altamont and Manson, not the Woodstock and Sgt, Pepper of the rest of the album. Its fourteen minutes is a dark, hallucinatory jam through the inner workings of a mind trapped in its own personal hell and, for me, is a clear standout and a great way to end the album and send the listener away with a sobering reality check. "Corridors" isn't a perfect album by any means and the two tracks immediately before the titanic closer feel like filler, but the two longest tracks that bookend the album, the title track and "Another Hell Within" certainly make it worth checking out if you are partial to a bit of drug-induced trippiness in your doom metal.

4/5 [82/100]

I thought it would be interesting to look at how ratings compared between clan and site ratings, so I looked at the chart for 10+ ratings to hopefully give a reaonable number of clan and non-clan ratings for most of the releases. Unsurprisingly the majority seemed to have higher clan ratings than site ratings although there are a significant number that have a slightly lower clan rating (0.1-0.2 less). I think it is reasonable to expect better clan ratings than overall site ratings as a clan member presumably has a better disposition towards a particular clan's releases. However, there were a few outliers that stood out as having decidedly lower clan ratings than site ratings and I wondered why this would be.

A number are from The Sphere, which we know has fewest members, so if a Sphere release doesn't hit with the one or two active clan members then it is entirely possible the site rating will exceed the clan rating. In Flames has four releases on the above list. I am not really that familiar with them, so is there something about them that appeals more to those outside The Horde than hardcore death metallers? Converge, Meshuggah and a couple of Devin Townsend releases also have a negative clan/site rating ration so, again, is there something about those acts that appeals more outside their respective clans?

Taubra - "Therizo" (2023)

Taubra was founded in 2022 by swiss guitarist Berg, who also plies his trade as the multi-instrumentalist behind Aara. Now, Taubra are a new one on me, but I am quite familiar with Aara, particular the earlier releases and I would count myself as a fan. I got to hear the track "Rembrandt of Death" whilst compiling the North playlist (nice nomination Vinny) and I kept sneaking back to it as it stood out to me, so good vibes abounded as I dived in to check out the full album.

The band hit an aggressive and vicious pose with some vibrantly brutal riffing thanks to a death metal style production job that beefs up their sound with a significant amount of bottom end and is perhaps a bit more bludgeoning than usual with the tremolo riffs not quite as dominant and high in the mix as you might normally expect. This pummelling viciousness is counterbalanced, though, by a degree of melodicism that gives it more memorability than an unrelenting blast-fest would and I am getting a decided Mgla vibe from a significant proportion of the material on offer. Vocals are provided by Norway's Ruben Haug who has been around the scene for many years and is a writer for the Heavymetal.no website. He does a damn good job too and has a ragged, barking scream that is aggressive, savage sounding and very much in your face.

We all know how far and wide the black metal umbrellaI spreads nowadays and it seems to widen every year as the genre always seems to be innovating, so I can almost feel a fair few black metal fans rolling their eyes and shrugging their shoulders at Taubra, but I have never hidden the fact that I am perfectly happy to listen to metal that isn't particularly original or groundbreaking as long as it is done well and provides some kind of buzz to my cynical soul and on that level "Therizo" hits the mark for me. It is powerful and aggressive-sounding, yet is still reasonably accessible and passes the test of getting this old dog nodding his head and pummelling imaginary kick drums in an ankle-strain-threatening flurry of flapping feet. What can I say, I love this sort of shit and I love metal that makes me feel alive as much as metal that makes me think, so a big thumbs up from me.

4.5/5 [86/100]

I have put together a list of the most significant thrash metal debut full-lengths that were released from 1983 - 1985, excluding crossover thrash and ordered chronologically. Some bands came flying out of the gates on fire and others less so, needing a record or two to get into their stride. So, of those on the list, who do you think nailed it from the off and who stuttered - and who never really got going at all for that matter.

Link to the list:

https://metal.academy/lists/single/358

The band who absolutely nailed it for me was Celtic Frost with "To Mega Therion", although their "Morbid Tales" EP that preceded it was one hell of a warm-up record. Probably most disappointing, in light of future excellence, is Kreator's "Endless Pain" and "Pleasure To Kill" is a world away from the debut.

Bathory, Possessed and Sacrilege all put out absolute top-knotch debuts too and Exodus never bettered theirs.

Of course the influence of "Kill 'Em All" can't be overstated. It contains some classic tracks and although it is patchy it is much superior to Mustaine's debut. Then, of course, I love "Show No Mercy" and "The Antichrist" is still one of my all-time favourite Slayer tracks. 

Xephyr, be aware that today is the last day for nominations for the North playlist for September as I want to start working on it tomorrow.

Hi Ben, could you add Belarusian melo-death band Asguard please.