Sonny's Forum Replies

My Top Ten Albums of 1991:

1. Autopsy - Mental Funeral

2.  Death - Human

3. Atheist - Unquestionable Presence

4. Death Strike - Fuckin' Death

5. Immolation - Dawn of Possession

6. Carcass - Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious

7. Paradise Lost - Gothic

8. Iced Earth - Night of the Stormrider

9. Coroner - Mental Vortex

10. Bolt Thrower - War Master

My Top Ten Albums of 1992:

1. Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky

2. Burzum - Burzum

3. Incantation - Onward to Golgotha

4. Fleshcrawl - Descend Into the Absurd

5. Brutal Truth - Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses

6. Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction

7. Baphomet - The Dead Shall Inherit

8. Internal Void - Standing on the Sun

9. Helmet - Meantime

10. Bolt Thrower - The IVth Crusade

Bolt Thrower - The IVth Crusade (1992)

Bolt Thrower were probably the very first death metal band I got into. During the very early 1990s I had pretty much left the metal world behind, but I often still listened to good old John Peel's (RIP) late night radio show (usually on my drive home from work after a 2-10 shift) and Bolt Thrower were a band he championed (along with Carcass and Napalm Death), so they often featured on his show. To be honest they really stood out to my ears because, at this time, I wasn't even remotely familiar with bands this brutal-sounding, Reign In Blood being the most brutal record I had heard up to then, so this was a whole new level of aggression and brutality which really made an impression. Admittedly I didn't seek out their records or anything at this point, as I said I wasn't really listening to metal a this point in my life, but the name Bolt Thrower stuck in my head along with the impression of something so unbelievably brutal-sounding that it was hard to believe they dared play it on the radio.

Now all these many years later I have got myself much more familar with the band and their material and whilst it is true that they were never a band that have tried to push the envelope, they managed to maintain an impressive level of consistency over their almost thirty year career and never produced anything other than high quality, no frills death metal. The IVth Crusade was their fourth full-length and this time around they turned their conflict-obsessed attentions towards the Fourth Crusade, which was called by Pope Innocent III in the early thirteenth century and was intended to overthrow the Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate before retaking Jerusalem, but which ended up with Constantinople being sacked by the Western Catholic Church and deepening the schism between Eastern and Western Catholic Empires, hence the lyric of the title track, "Vanquished in the name of your god, One of the same to whom we once prayed".

Bloodstained lyricism apart, Bolt Thrower have a distinct sound, with a depth and bassiness that doesn't descend into the realm of the cavernous, but retains a solidity and heft that bludgeons like a sledgehammer to the temple. No, they don't paint outside the lines, but they pack such a punch with their tight riffing and bone-crushing rhythms that the appeal of their sound is impossible to withstand for any fan of extreme metal. Karl Willetts vocal delivery is all growling menace and barely-contained violence that roars it's blood-drenched words of human destruction, hurling them into the listeners face like an accusation of complicity. He is also one of the very few extreme metal vocalists that I can hear virtually every word he utters. The lead guitar work can best be described as functional with the Midlanders never going in for overt showiness, but letting the driving rhythms and muscular riffing define their sound with the soloing only acting as muted decoration rather than their raison d'être. In this way their music has an almost military functionality and lethality which, given their aesthetic, I wouldn't be surprised if it was completely by design.

By the time of The IVth Crusade all traces of their earlier grind sound had been left behind and the album is pure and unfiltered death metal from start to finish. Although my personal favourite BT album is Realm of Chaos, which marks the ideal balance between death metal and their earlier grind affiliation, this isn't really very far behind in my affections. Despite it's monstrous solidity the riffs are often quite melodic, sticking in the memory pretty well and are absolutely guaranteed to get the old noggin' nodding. The band often get painted with the accusation of being "samey" and while it is true that they have never felt the need to experiment with their sound, there is sufficient variation in tempo to maintain interest over the length of an album. All in all, if you want an album of unashamed death metal with solid songwriting performed to the highest level then you could do much worse than break open a copy of The IVth Crusade.

4/5

It's been a long time since anyone posted on this thread, so I thought I would just post an update on my assault on The Horde's Death Metal - The 1st Decade challenge. I am now about two-thirds of the way through and after dipping in and out of it for a few months I am now determined to knuckle down and gain that fourth clan badge! I have been approaching it chronologically as I did with my early death metal discovery project and I now just have Bolt Thrower's The IVth Crusade to review and that will be 1992 finished. All in all I think I have eight more albums to review, so I had better get on with it.

Asphyx - Last One On Earth (1992)

Now Dutchmen Asphyx are a death metal band I have been familiar with for quite a while now, their brand of OSDM coming to my attention via recommendations for bands similar to Autopsy and the fact that former Pestilence bassist/vocalist, Martin van Drunen, performed vocals on this and their debut album, The Rack, (as well as their later albums after rejoining the band in 2007). In common with many of the early practitioners of death doom, Asphyx like to vary their pacing throughout the albums runtime, not just sticking rigidly to the death doom template with their take on this style of death metal being less cavernous and abyssal-sounding than the likes of Autopsy. The production of Last One On Earth has rendered their sound crisper and less filthy than a lot of their contemporaries, which makes the album more desperate and hopeless-sounding than demonic and threatening, as if the band are victims of evil rather than the perpetrators of it.

One of the main reasons for this desperation is van Drunen's unique, shredded higher register which is a long way from the rumbling growls of Chris Reifert and co. and which gives the doom-laden sections a more human connection, reflecting a hopeless and bleak atmosphere. Of course, slow, doom-laden passages are far from the only game in town and Asphyx have no fear of letting rip, Serenade in Lead being a particular exercise in high-velocity riffing. The quicker material benefits greatly from the better-defined guitar tone and the issue of muddiness that often plagues the perpetrators of the more cavernous style doesn't rear it's head here. The songwriting is impeccable with killer riffs, variations in pacing with smooth transitions, interesting lyrical content and, most importantly, a crushing heaviness that any extreme metalhead can readily appreciate.

A couple of niggling issues are the lack of any appreciable bass presence in the mix which does seem to prevent the album from sounding as crushing as it may otherwise have done and I would have liked to hear a bit more lead work as the soloing that is present is pretty damn good. Minor gripes aside, Last One On Earth is a definite step up from the already well-received debut The Rack and, for me, is the high watermark of Asphyx's career to date.

4/5

Ben, could you add Hungary's 666 please?

I got a few of the very early issues of ZT and found it suited my taste better than Terrorizer (which was still going at the time). It was a decent mag, but suffered the same problems as all printed media that has to attract readers to keep afloat in that it tended to cover the better known acts and didn't really delve into the underground.

I listened to this fairly recently and don't consider that it meets the modern criteria as a metal release. As someone who was actually a rock/metal fan in the 1970s I think I could add some perspective here. Deep Purple were considered heavy metal back then, as were Led Zeppelin, UFO, KISS, Ted Nugent, BOC and even AC/DC. But the term was more an umbrella term for the heavier bands around, as opposed to the likes of Boston, Kansas and Aerosmith who had a lighter sound. Metal has since become an actually defined term and can be applied more rigourously and into which several of these earlier bands no longer fit, Deep Purple being one such I would suggest. GnR were never called heavy metal in my experience and were always referred to as a rock band.

Sadly I don't have a vote as I am not in The Guardians but a metal top 100 with Guns n Roses in it just seems so wrong for the premier internet metal site.

I think we as metal historians should try to remember what metal was back today.  I mean, but the logic of evolution, one can say that Metallica won't even be metal once the world has gotten used to something much heavier than that, which IS possible.

I think that back then there was less of a need to classify music into smaller and smaller genre boxes. A lot of the sub-genres that are applied to older music didn't exist at the time. In 1970 nobody referred to anything as heavy psych, for example. That is a term which has been applied much later, probably only since the advent of internet music appreciation. So broader terms like heavy metal - it was ONLY heavy metal then, it wasn't called metal, it was HEAVY metal - were applied to a much wider spectrum of artists,  as were other styles like Disco, Punk, Funk, Pop, Psychedelia etc. Rock music would probably be the exception as there were glam rock, pop rock, soft rock and so on. Hard rock, heavy rock and heavy metal were used as interchangeable terms for basically the same bands (as I mentioned above). There has since, though, been a redefining of the term heavy metal which isn't the same (and which Daniel can explain far better than I), but causes confusion by having the same name. This is why there are anomalies such as glam metal (which even on RYM has rock as it's root, not metal) or a large percentage of the NWOBHM who didn't play what is now covered by the modern term metal - Girlschool, Tygers of Pan Tang etc.

I get what your point about Metallica possibly no longer being considered metal in the future, Rex, and, to a degree, that has already happened with the term extreme metal which may well have been used to describe Metallica at one point but which most certainly doesn't any more, but with a technical definition such as we now have for the term heavy metal or metal rather than the vague generalised term that it was in it's original usage, then that shouldn't happen.

A few notes regarding the tracks selected for this month's playlist:

1. Worship of Keres - "Book 3" (from "Bloodhounds for Oblivion", 2016) [submitted by Sonny]
I was going through some of the older releases I had purchased from Bandcamp and this 2016 EP jumped out at me with it's chunky and ponderous riff contrasting with singer Elise Tarens voice to great effect. They still seem to be going, but a measly couple of EPs is all they have produced so far.

2. Decadence Dust - "Lighthouse" (from "Lighthouse", 2023)
I must admit that as far as gothic metal goes I have to rely on the RYM charts quite a lot and this month they threw up Russian duo Decadence Dust and their new album Lighthouse. They sound a lot like Lacuna Coil I thought. Vocalist Anna Dust has a really nice voice and multi-instrumentalist Alexander Kargaev does a good job on the instrumental side of things. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I actually didn't mind this track.

3. Black Capricorn - "Snake of the Wizard" (from "Cult of Blood", 2022)
Black Capricorn are another Bandcamp favourite for me and I have just obtained a copy of this, their latest, last year's Cult of Blood. Super-fuzzy stoner doom from Italy that is a nice grooviness to it. The vocals aren't so great, but I can't resist a good fuzz-fest.

4. Toadliquor - "Gnaw" (from "Feel My Hate - The Power Is the Weight - R.I.P. Cain", 1993)
Another more recent discovery, sludgesters Toadliquor only left us a single full-length despite being in existence throughout the entire 1990s. Bleak as fuck, desperate-sounding sludge, I love this track.

5. Liturgy - "Veins of God" (from "Aesthethica", 2011) [submitted by Daniel]
I've not listened to Liturgy before (that avant-garde tag has always put me off) and I am guessing that this isn't what they usually sound like. A repetitive trad/stoner doom riff that I have no idea what effect it has in the context of the album from which it came, but in isolation it sounds quite a bit Ufomammut-ish.

6. Church of Misery - "Come and Get Me Sucker (David Koresh)" (from "Born Under a Mad Sign", 2023)
It was only during the compilation of this playlist that I found out that Japanese, serial killer-obsessed stoners Church of Misery had a new album out. After a sample of a ranting David Koresh this kicks into gear with a hard-hitting stoner groove that somewhat belies the subject matter and is a guaranteed toe-tapper and head-nodder.

7. Nightfucker - "Poisoned Wine" (from "Leechfeast / Nightfucker Split EP", 2023)
Last month I featured Leechfeast's contribution to this split EP, so in the interests of fairness here is the second of Nightfucker's two tracks.

8. Windhand - "Halcyon" (from "Eternal Return", 2018) [submitted by Vinny]
A great track from one of my absolute favourite female-fronted psych-doom bands. This was five years ago now, so a new studio album is long overdue,

9. Messa - "Babalon" (from "Belfry", 2016)
Messa are one of the most celebrated doom metal bands of the last couple of years, pushing boundaries more than most. Babalon is from their 2016 debut and is a bit more conventional in it's approach to doom. It's still a quality release though.
 
10. Tragedia - "Tiamat" (from "El libro de Enoc", 2023)
I've never heard these guys before, again using the RYM gothic metal charts to find them, but this is actually pretty good as far as gothic metal goes. I will have to check it out further I think.

11. Minotauri - "Doom Metal Alchemy" (from "Minotauri", 2004)
Primitive sounding Finnish trad doom that pays homage to early exponents of the style such as Pentagram. Minotauri were contemporaries of Reverend Bizarre and sound very similar to their countrymen.

12. Capilla Ardiente - "The Spell of Concealment" (from "The Siege", 2019)
Chile doesn't just produce the best thrash metal on the planet at the minute, they also have a great epic doom band in Capilla Ardiente. Candlemass worship at it's best. Notably it keeps that prominent, growling bass so beloved of so many modern Chilean thrash bands.

13. Rippikoulu - "Pimeys yllä Jumalan maan" (from "Musta seremonia", 1993) [submitted by Daniel]
Super lo-fi early death doom from the awesome Musta seremonia demo. Awesome stuff for the doom metal historian.

14. Thorr's Hammer - "Norge"
TH have attained legendary status, despite only originally existing for six weeks in the winter of '94/'95. Sunn O)))'s Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley teamed up with Norwegian exchange student Runhild Gammelsæter, playing a couple of gigs and recording the three-track EP from which this track was taken. Runhild has a different vocal style to the other ladies who have featured on this month's playlist and could be the musical performance of the possessed Regan from The Exorcist.

15. Warning - "Footprints" (from "Watching from a Distance", 2006) [submitted by Vinny]
It's Warning... It's from Watching From A Distance. Thankyou Vinny, I am a happy man!!

16. Khanate - "To Be Cruel" (from "To Be Cruel", 2023) [submitted by Sonny]
The title track from Khanate's latest. The soundtrack to all your worst nightmares. My favourite album of 2023 to date.

Demigod - Slumber of Sullen Eyes (1992)

Finns Demigod and their album Slumber of Sullen Eyes must be one of death metal's best-kept secrets, being a band I have never even heard of prior to this. The reason for this may have been that it was released on a little-known and short-lived Spanish label, Drowned Productions, rather than a big-hitter like Earache or Roadrunner, because it certainly isn't down to a lack of quality. Their sound seems to be based upon the Swedish sound of neighbours Entombed, yet I found it more palatable than the Swedes' sound, mainly due to it having a deeper and more bassy timbre to it which sits a bit better with me personally. I still think this type of overdriven sound works best on the slower, more death doomy sections, as it tends to lose definition somewhat as the tempo gets quicker and can just become an aural blur on the absolute fastest sections.

There are some great death metal riffs contained within Slumber of Sullen Eyes and they come thick and fast, not just thrown together, but forged into songs that are dynamic and coherent. As I hinted at earlier there is plenty of variation in pacing with some death doom adjacent sections interspersing the more usual and quicker death metal tempos. The leadwork is decent and effective without exactly setting the world on fire, but that said, it is suits the material perfectly well. Vocalist and guitarist Esa Lindén has a nice line in deathly growls that are deep enough to provide a fairly intimidating roar when required. Rhythm section-wise things are solid enough, although the drums could have done with a bit more oomph as they often sound a bit too dull to properly drive the tracks forward. There are also a couple of occasions where they bring in some reedy-sounding keyboards which is always a nice touch on these early death metal albums and provides a bit of aesthetic variation.

Overall, this is a hidden gem of early underground European death metal and I think these Finns actually sound better than their more celebrated Scandinavian cousins such as Entombed. It's a pity it all kind of went tits up for them after this because they sound like they could have been a big noise in Euro-Death Metal circles.

4/5

I listened to this fairly recently and don't consider that it meets the modern criteria as a metal release. As someone who was actually a rock/metal fan in the 1970s I think I could add some perspective here. Deep Purple were considered heavy metal back then, as were Led Zeppelin, UFO, KISS, Ted Nugent, BOC and even AC/DC. But the term was more an umbrella term for the heavier bands around, as opposed to the likes of Boston, Kansas and Aerosmith who had a lighter sound. Metal has since become an actually defined term and can be applied more rigourously and into which several of these earlier bands no longer fit, Deep Purple being one such I would suggest. GnR were never called heavy metal in my experience and were always referred to as a rock band.

Sadly I don't have a vote as I am not in The Guardians but a metal top 100 with Guns n Roses in it just seems so wrong for the premier internet metal site.

It has been over a year and a half since I last posted a dearh metal top ten and I have done a fair bit of exploration of the genre since then, so here is my updated list.

1. Immolation - Close to a World Below (2000)

2. Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness (1989)

3. Death - Human (1991)

4. Incantation - Diabolical Conquest (1998)

5. Autopsy - Mental Funeral (1991)

6. Obituary - Cause of Death (1990)

7. Incantation - Onward to Golgotha (1992)

8. Benediction - Subconscious Terror (1990)

9. Death - Spiritual Healing (1990)

10. Gorement - The Ending Quest (1994)

It's very different to my earlier list, which is an indication to how my appreciation of death metal has evolved I suppose. I know it is principally better known stuff, but I have barely scratched the surface yet, so hopefully there are plenty more awesome releases that may muscle their way into future lists.

I am most definitely not the target for this and I got nothing from it. From very early on all I wanted was for it to end but it's over an hour in length and that hour seemed interminable. Don't misunderstand, it seems well performed and produced, but it just isn't my thing at all. For me, this style of alternative metal is merely bland and uninteresting, failing to elicit any interest whatsoever.

I'll have to give it a 1.5/5 for enjoyment (or lack thereof), but I'm sure it's worth far more to those better disposed to it's charms. That's just not me and I recognise that failing as being all mine.

I've not posted on here for a bit, so a couple of yearly lists that reflect my recent death metal discoveries.

Sonny's Top Ten of 1989:

1. Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness

2. Terrorizer - World Downfall

3. Autopsy - Severed Survival

4. Sempiternal Deathreign - The Spooky Gloom

5. Bolt Thrower - Realm of Chaos

6. Sepultura - Beneath the Remains

7. Candlemass - Tales of Creation

8. Carcass - Symphonies of Sickness

9. Sodom - Agent Orange

10. Coroner - No More Color

Sonny's Top Ten of 1990

1. Winter - Into Darkness

2. Kreator - Coma of Souls

3. Obituary - Cause of Death

4. Death - Spiritual Healing

5. Benediction - Subconscious Terror

6. Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death

7. Atheist - Piece of Time

8. Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss

9. Saint Vitus - V

10. Deicide - Deicide

Sorry Sonny. If I'm not too late, I'll go for...

Katatonia - Brave off Brave Murder Day (1996)

Fires in the Distance - Harbingers off Air Not Meant for Us (2023)

No problem, Ben. As a matter of fact, the Fires in the Distance track was one I had been considering anyway. What's the odds?!

Sonny, I don't wanna go on about it in a public forum but I've had some personal experience hanging out with Destroyer 666 & let's just say that they fit the criteria mentioned above quite accurately. 

Right you are, Daniel. We're probably best leaving it there then.

I had no idea that the Farmer Boys track was a cover in all honesty.  It is fucking terrible though.

Destroyer 666 have some less than desirable views according to the internet.  I detach the music from the person quite easily (never meet your idols, and all that) and accept that although I like their music I would probably not get along with 80% of the bands who's albums I own if I was left alone in a room with them.

I think anyone who is serious about extreme metal has to be able to separate the art from the artist, particularly in black metal circles. Like you, I have no problem doing so, but it seems some people can't get past it. It's only like, whilst being very far idealistically from someone like Mel Gibson, I can still watch Mad Max (the original movie anyway) and love the shit out of it.

I can't imagine not listening to Burzum, Deathspell Omega, Emperor, Gorgoroth or Dissection just because they are (allegedly) knobheads. I only raised the issue because I had never seen Destroyer 666 linked with far-right ideology before and wondered if there was any basis in fact for the assertion.

Yeah, I can't give any assurance of fact based on what I have heard.  Usually, when artists get asked this question directly they spend about four paragraphs of a written interview talking in smoke and mirrors.  The internet is full of alleged and also bonafide knobheads I suspect.  I have had to ban a few outright fascist members on my other forum because they literally just said "black metal is the music of the master race..." in their opening posts.  That's the real dumb shit that is out there.  There was a metal forum (may still be around) and you only got to join if a member recommended you like it was some exclusive metal community or something.  When I got in there it was largely the realm of Trump supporters and white supremists so I did not last long on that board.

It's one thing separating art from artists, but having to put up with assholes spouting fascist bullshit on internet forums is not something I want to be a part of. I've come across too many racist knobheads in real life to put up with their crap on the internet!

I had no idea that the Farmer Boys track was a cover in all honesty.  It is fucking terrible though.

Destroyer 666 have some less than desirable views according to the internet.  I detach the music from the person quite easily (never meet your idols, and all that) and accept that although I like their music I would probably not get along with 80% of the bands who's albums I own if I was left alone in a room with them.

I think anyone who is serious about extreme metal has to be able to separate the art from the artist, particularly in black metal circles. Like you, I have no problem doing so, but it seems some people can't get past it. It's only like, whilst being very far idealistically from someone like Mel Gibson, I can still watch Mad Max (the original movie anyway) and love the shit out of it.

I can't imagine not listening to Burzum, Deathspell Omega, Emperor, Gorgoroth or Dissection just because they are (allegedly) knobheads. I only raised the issue because I had never seen Destroyer 666 linked with far-right ideology before and wondered if there was any basis in fact for the assertion.

I have seen Bloodbath's name bandied about all over the place and assumed them to be some kind of death metal supergroup - a concept I have always hated (Shrinebuilder anyone) due to it being more about who is in the band than what they play and the compromises to enormous egos (Travelling Wilburys)? Well, they are a supergroup I suppose, with Mikael Åkerfeldt and Martin Axenrot from Opeth, Katatonia's Anders Nyström and Jonas Renkse along with ex-Katatonia and Ghost guitarist Per Eriksson they couldn't really be considered as anything else. That is all quite simply irrelevant as far as this four-track ep is concerned because it is an absolutely brilliant fifteen minutes of super-tight death metal.

I haven't heard anything else from Bloodbath, but gather that they (unsurprisingly I suppose, given the fact that they are Swedish) lean more towards the Swedish sound of death metal, which isn't completely my cup of tea I must admit. This seems far more rooted in conventional death metal and in particular it sounds a lot like the Polish death metal of Behemoth and Vader which is a sound I have been a fan of for quite some time now. These four tracks exhibit a much tighter sound than I have become used to from the Swedish bands and which always seems to be a feature of Polish death metal. Mikael Åkerfeldt's vocals in particular sound a lot like Vader frontman Piotr Wiwczarek. It may be brief, but it certainly is effective - a case of it came, it saw and it kicked everyone's ass! Now, where's my copy of Black to the Blind?

4/5

Well, this seems to have been a bit of a damp squib as far as a feature release goes, but I am undaunted and still consider it a good record.

Blood Tsunami were formed in 2004 and when it became apparent that their original drummer wasn't up to the task, they recruited the infamous former Emperor skinsman, Bård Eithun, aka Faust, who had recently been released from prison. They started playing thrash metal at a time when the genre was in the doldrums, but by the time of the release of the sophomore, Grand Feast for Vultures, the somewhat half-hearted thrash revival was underway with bands like Gama Bomb and Municipal Waste dominating things. One bright spark though, was the resurgence of Kreator whose Enemy of God and Hordes of Chaos albums had re-established the Germans' reputation somewhat. Blood Tsunami took this aggressive approach of the "new" Kreator and married it with some good old-fashioned Iron Maiden worship and produced an interesting hybrid of blackened thrash and traditional metal that I personally found quite intoxicating and irresistible.

Opening up with a one-two thrash combo, Castle of Skulls and Nothing but Contempt get us off to a breakneck start, with the early seconds of the opener grabbing our attention by channelling Slayer's Angel of Death. These two and the title track which close out the first side are where the Kreator-influenced thrash component is at it's most prominent and all three are real rip-snorters (as we say round these parts) Grand Feast for Vultures itself being an absolute face melter! The other four tracks aren't strictly thrash metal and whilst containing elements thereof, to greater or lesser effect, there is a more pronounced heavy metal presence. This is most obvious in the Maiden-esque lead work with some solos that may have just dropped in from Piece of Mind or Powerslave. Whatever persuasion they are derived from, this album is chock full of riffs with the guitar work of Pete Evil and Dor Amazon dominating almost everything.

Pete Evil (sadly, not his real name, that being Peter Michael Kolstad Vegem) has a shrieking black metal delivery which is bolstered at times by the more death metal-sounding backing of Amazon and bassist Pete "Bosse" Boström. This combination of shrieks and barks works very well and gives the vocals a very muscular tone. Pete Evil is obviously the main man here and the production does enhance and highlight his contributions with Bosse and Faust losing out in the mix it seems. This is a great shame because if you take the time to concentrate on Faust's drumming then you will hear that it really is impressive and, no matter what else he may or may not be, the guy is one hell of a fantastic skinsman, his power and precision making me think of an extreme metal John Bonham.

Side two features two epic tracks, first of which is the twelve-minute instrumental Horsehead Nebula, which could be in danger of coming over as self-indulgent, but in fact it is a very well constructed and epic instrumental track that leads us hither and thither and successfully throws in plenty of memorable moments and is the track where Blood Tsunami are at their most Maiden-esque. I've always been partial to thrash instrumentals and this is a fine example of the discipline, sitting as one of my favourites alongside Orion and The Ultra-Violence. Closing things out is my favourite track, One Step Closer to the Grave, another ten-minute plus track and with it's slower pacing it almost verges on epic doom metal in it's execution. It begins with a real lurking menace before exploding into another instrumental extravaganza with the guitarists trading solos as it storms headlong to it's maelstrom of a climax.

OK, so Grand Feast for Vultures isn't a perfect record and at times it threatens to tip over into being overblown, but the performances are excellent, the songs are great and it's suggestion of sonic excess is a plus, not a minus in my book.

4.5/5

Yes, actually you're right, but deathcore still isn't showing as a genre I have rated even though I now have two. 

My history with Whitechapel amounts to little more than a couple of dalliances with tracks on cover discs from metal mags like Terrorizer and Zero Tolerance a decade or more ago now and I can't say I had much time for them. Well, I guess my tastes must have broadened since those days because I actually quite enjoyed this album, even though it is likely that tracks from it were the very self-same tracks that adorned the covers of those mags all those years ago. Now, it is unlikely that Whitechapel will ever sit near the summit of my personal metal hierarchy, but I am genuinely surprised that I got so much out of this because, frankly, I wasn't looking forward to it at all.

The biggest drawback of metalcore for me is the vocals. Their "shouty" nature and general abrasiveness is something I struggle with to be honest. Whitechapel singer, Phil Bozeman, by utilising a lower register, death metal gurgle has provided a singing style that I find much more palatable than that employed by your average metalcore vocalist and which makes me much more amenable to everything else going on during A New Era of Corruption's forty minutes. I know little to nothing about deathcore, but I like how Whitechapel take a basic death metal sound and increase the intensity by utilising a metalcore approach. Technically this sounds very competent with a tight rhythm section and brutally effective riffs that have condensed their sound into a white-hot, focussed blast that hits like opening a furnace door and is liable to singe your eyebrows off! There is some decent lead work that isn't at all showy, but is effective nevertheless, but I get the feeling that that isn't what this is all about really.

I've given this several runthroughs now and I really have found it a great listen, but no one track particularly stands out and my impressions are more of the album as a whole than individual tracks grabbing my attention. That may well be due to my lack of familiarity with deathcore - I checked my ratings on RYM and this appears to be the first deathcore album I have ever listened to, so it's all kind of new to me. That said, if there are more albums like this then it won't be the last. If I really had to pick a favourite then it would have to be Unnerving, the keyboards initially make it stand out before the swirling riffing grabs hold in an almost vertiginous maelstrom of sonic violence. The brutal intensity is the one thing above all other I will take away from A New Era of Corruption and it's determination to give the listener a metaphorical kicking is perfectly realised. I would imagine that the pit at a Whitechapel show may not be the safest place in the world!

So, another Revolution feature gets a thumbs-up from me and this is getting worrying - I must be getting far too tolerant as I get older!!

4/5

Will you be making any suggestions for the August playlist, Ben?

That's both hilarious and horrifying Sonny! Perhaps it would have been more fitting for Patch to choose Autopsy's Shitfun record.

Unfortunately it was all shit and no fun!

I always use headphones because otherwise it irritates my wife too much!!

Your cat woes reminds me of back in the day when my first wife left back in the mid 80s. I had  a Border Collie called Patch and, unfortunately I had to leave him home alone when I went to work. One day I came home and found that he had shat on the floor, but being an intelligent dog, he had decided to cover it up in the hopes that I didn't discover it and so I was greeted by the sight of my Seventh Son of A Seventh Son and Kill 'Em All LPs lying on top of a pile of shit and clawed up to fuck!!I

Needless to say I never left  LPs out again when I went to work and luckily my mum and dad took Patch in soon after, so he was never left alone all day anymore.

My 30 year-old JVC music system has finally gone to the scrappies and I have a new set-up at last. I've now got an Audio-Technica AT-LP120XUSB Manual Direct-Drive Turntable with a Sony STRDH190.CEK amplifier and a pair of Sennheiser HD 559 wired headphones. It's not exactly top-of-the-range, but it still sounds amazing. There really is no better way to listen to doom or OSDM in my opinion. First album on the new deck was 1914's Where Fear and Weapons Meet. Just been playing last month's Horde feature, Apparition's Feel, that I bought earlier in the week and it really does sound incredible.

Unfortunately I have no CD player at the minute, so it's laptop or PS4 for playing CDs and I've still got a shitty Walkman for tapes.

Reddit’s pretty big on elitism too just quietly. 

At the risk of showing my age, I don't even know what Reddit is! I have seen the name, but have no idea what it is all about. Am I missing out?

I am thinking of becoming a full-time elitist as it seems to pay well, so what is the best site to go to to have my opinions spoon-fed to me?

That's a good question Sonny. I think it's probably because of a) the Ved Buens Ende..... & Arcturus influences that pop up occasionally & b) the unusual use of quirky melodic motifs over your more traditional black metal sound. The use of dissonance isn't anything extreme or terribly unusual for black metal so I can't see how that could be a driver. Perhaps the fact that Tilintetgjort jump around a fair bit stylistically might be encouraging it too. Alternatively it may simply be that Tilintetgjort's label decided to post them in Metal Archives with an Avant-garde Black Metal tag & we all know that the elitist masses will believe anything they read from that particular website, often at the expense of truth & integrity.

One thing is for sure, it has failed my litmus test for avant-garde metal because I actually like it! 

I had been wondering where all these elitist viewpoints were coming from (see RYM's Official Metal thread) and I guess metal archives may be the source after all.

Why do you think there is such an insistence elsewhere that this is avant-garde black metal, Daniel? I don't think it is at all avant-garde and, especially with the epic closer, I would tag it more as progressive than avant-garde. Nice review, by the way, you often seem to be able to express what I mean far more eloquently than I can myself!

Great choice, Vinny. Here's my review.

This debut album from Oslo black metallers, Tilintetgjort, was an interesting listen to be sure and, in the main, it was one which I enjoyed. There is a great deal of variety within it's six tracks and the band seem determined not to plough a singular and uniform black metal furrow throughout it's runtime, but rather to explore a wider swathe of BM subgenres and not paint themselves into a metaphorical musical corner, with an almost punk-like, irreverent approach to black metal convention. In Death I Shall Arise feels like a shot in the arm for a genre which increasingly goes around like it's got a stick up it's arse with it's intense, experimental dissonance bullshit or the dreamy navel-gazing of modern blackgaze, where the single-minded "artistic vision" of bm protagonists is paramount over everything, including actually being enjoyable to listen to. Inevitably, this does comes with a degree of inconsistency as regards the songwriting, although the performances throughout are very good, but it is an approach I applaud. Apparently the bulk of the album was recorded live in the studio over a three day period in February of 2022, with a few overdubs added later, and I think this adds a looseness and a vibrancy to the sound that a more meticulous approach may have crushed out if it and it does feel like an actual band playing music rather than a bunch of technicians wielding the arsenal of recording tools now available to almost anyone with a laptop.

In Death I Shall Arise kicks off with an absolute belter, Kvikksølvdrømmer, the swirling guitar riffing and thunderous drum battery that define the track get the album off to a high-octane start then towards the latter part of the track displaying a punkish devilry when they drop into a Ramones-like riff that almost has you yelling "Gabba Gabba Hey" (in a cracked and devilish shriek, obviously). The second track, Sannhetens søyler, continues with a similar, latter-day Darkthrone, punkish vibe and a really catchy guitar melody which at times threatens to fall apart into dissonance, but never actually does, the overall effect kind of keeps you guessing as to where we are going here.

By the time third track, Mercurial, comes around, it is becoming clear that drummer, Englishman Tybalt (Daniel Theobald), is absolutely central to the material as he is all over it and is a veritable hurricane, blowing away all that stands before him in a flurry of blastbeats and fills that mark him as an incredible talent (to my untrained ear anyway). The basslines of four-string-wielder, Sturt (Jens B. Johansen) are also quite prominent at times, in a way similar to that which a number of the modern Chilean thrashers employ.

Vinter og høst is a track where Tilintetgjort employ a dissonant style that reminds me of tracks on early Ihsahn solo albums and this is followed by another short blaster, Hex, that comes over like a hybrid of Darkthrone and Deathspell Omega. Closing out the album is the twenty-minute epic, Dommedagsmonument (Doomsday Monument). This is quite an ambitious track with a three-part progressive structure that's really nice to hear, regaling us with a tale of cosmic mysticism and power. It's opening evil blasts give way to a Wardruna-like nordic folk section with clean vocals and acoustic guitar, that itself is overtaken by a more bombastic section with earnest-sounding cleans and impactful tremolo guitar work. Part three is a Darkthrone-esque section that I think sounds fantastic as the band really let loose with a black'n'roll riff from hell that illustrates the titular doomsday as Svik's demonic vocal reveals the cosmic visions of destruction. He has got a great line in evil, cracked shrieking that sounds demonically evil and his occasional cleans aren't too bad either.

Overall this is an album that I enjoyed immensely and, in truth, I keep getting more out of it the more I listen to it. The drumming is amazing, the guitar work is busy and propulsive and the vocals are classic-sounding, not dissimilar to Nocturno Culto's. I like the attempt at an ambitious approach that doesn't turn it's back on what makes black metal so great to begin with, but that uses the best of it within a progressive song structure. All-in-all I found this massively entertaining and look forward to where these guys go from here.

4/5

Hi Ben, could you please add Adelaide's Lucifer's Fall.

It is obvious that I am very far removed from the target audience for this album and I really don't like lambasting albums that have been offered up as feature releases because they obviously mean something to the person offering them, but I'm really not sure where to start with what I dislike about Knights of the Cross. I guess the beginning is as good a place as any and, let's face it, the intro is ludicrous, to the point where I actually burst out laughing the first time around. The po-faced intoning of the album's concept by movie-trailer-man and Andrew Lloyd-Webber-esque musical bombast was just too much for me to take and I probably should just have turned it off and walked away at that point.

The thing is that after the silly opening things actually looked up with a rather wicked opening riff to the title track... until the vocals kicked in, that is. I don't like Chris Boltendahl's vocals at all and they even sound like they are about to go out of tune at any time, this is then exacerbated by the power metal staple of a harmonised chorus, a trope that is always guaranteed to get my back up. The album also seems to suffer from a common ailment of concept albums, which is forcing the music to fit the concept rather than the other way round.

I am a history buff myself and am quite keen on the history of the crusades so I was quite hopeful for the album, but oh dear. I hesitate to bring this up and I may be reading too much into it, but there also seems to be a borderline racism within the lyrics - the Muslims are all painted as "fanatic assassins", whereas Richard I is said to be "A man like a Lion, With a generous heart" even though "He executes all prisoners, without regret". This is a concept that is either written by someone who hasn't read a history book or, even worse, has but doesn't care about an accurate portrayal.

The shame about this is that the guitar work is really good. Both the riffing and the soloing are top drawer, but all the power metal window dressing that comes with it just makes it a painful experience for me personally. I've given it a couple of listens now, but I won't be returning to it and Grave Digger will be firmly filed in the bottom drawer marked "None of My Business".

1/5

Excellent work on the playlist once more this month Vinny. It was virtually flawless up until the Depeche Mode cover (I like the original, but this cover didn't work for me). There were a few after that one that didn't really do it for me either, which would be the more groove metal leaning material, but it did finish strongly again with the final couple of tracks.

I loved the Deströyer 666 track, but noticed that the album it comes from, Unchain the Wolves, is labelled as containing Nazi/National Socialist material on RYM. Does anyone know if this is a valid criticism of the band's ideology or not?

Church of Misery - Born Under A Mad Sign (2023)

The Japanese, serial-killer obsessed stoners are back with their first new release in seven years and the band have undergone wholesale lineup changes since 2016's And Then There Were None, in fact bassist and songwriter Tatsu Mikami is the only original member and CoM seems to have latterly become him and a crew of hired hands. For Born Under a Mad Sign Mikami has recruited original Church of Misery vocalist Kazuhiro Asaeda who has seemingly had an on/off relationship with the band and last appeared on 2007's Vol I. The drummer is ex-Eternal Elysium bassist Toshiaki Umemura and EE's main man, Yukito Okazaki handles guitar duties as a guest.

This time around Mikami focusses his attention on the likes of the Beltway Sniper, John Allen Muhammed, Alaskan murderer Robert Hansen and the infamous messiah of Waco, David Koresh. Uncomfortable sometimes though the subject matter is, Church of Misery have made a career out of utilising it in their lyrics and, I suppose, tap into that part of the human psyche that is fascinated by the worst that the human race has to offer. Let's face it, they are hardly alone in that regard as the public's seemingly insatiable appetite for it is also served by an endless stream of true crime movies, TV shows and books.

Anyway, questionable subject matter aside, Church of Misery have knocked out a really great slab of stoner metal this time - and I deliberately use the word "slab" because this is slab-heavy with a great depth of tone to Okazaki's distorted stoner riffs that, despite their groove-laden catchiness, have enough weight to crush a small elephant. The riffs have a bluesy groove that reaches back to metal's earliest days, but that still sound fairly modern due to their sheer weight and his soloing is psych-flavoured, but in a bad trip, Altamont, Charles Manson kind of way. Kazuhiro Asaeda's vocals really suit the band's aesthetic and I think he is probably my favourite CoM vocalist. His singing has a rasping, ragged desperation that sounds like a man with shredded nerves and who is at the end of his tether, pretty much how you imagine several of the lyrics' protaganists may have been feeling. Toshiaki Umemura puts in a fine shift behind the kit with some great fills and impeccable time-keeping, the drums being pushed far enough forward to make their presence felt without swamping anyone else. Apart from his songwriting chops being on display with as good a set of songs as I have heard from the band, Tatsu Mikami's bass growls away in the background like a disgruntled grizzly bear as it underpins the riffs and provides the propulsive force for the tracks. The production bestows a satisfying layer of grime over proceedings and allows the album to reach an extra level of filthiness that works well in it's favour.

I know that it is early days yet, but I keep sneaking back to this one and I am thinking that this may well end up as my favourite Church of Misery album to date.

A strong 4/5

Here's my submission for the July Guardians playlist:

DreamState - "Evolution" (from Evolution, 2012)

I was just reading through these and thought this said "the Judy Garland playlist" and thought I had gone to the wrong site by mistake!!

You’re not soft Ben. It’s just your musical taste, personality & physicality really.

Oooh, that's nasty!!

Anyway Ben, I don't know what to say. You have absolutely nailed it this month. In fact, it is rather embarrassing that the most "wimpy" track is one that I myself suggested (Ovnev). That one track aside, this is two hours of palpable evilness that more than satisfied the devil in me!! To do it without resorting to the more obvious candidates merely adds more kudos to your efforts this month. Consider me impressed.
[I will do a more in-depth analysis at some later date, all being well.]

I wasn't implying that you were soft Ben (I would never accuse an Aussie of softness!) Merely that the playlist in question tended away from the style of black metal that I particularly enjoy towards the more sophisticated end of the black metal spectrum.

Anyway, I am especially looking forward to this one and will be blasting it throughout the day.

Hi Ben, my submissions for August are:

Burzum - "Stemmen fra tårnet" (from "Aske EP", 1993)

Carpathian Forest - "The Swordsmen" (from "Black Shining Leather", 1998)

Armagedda - "Deathminded" (from "The Final War Approaching", 2001)

Black Witchery - "Antichrist Order of Holy Death" (from "Inferno of Sacred Destruction", 2010)

Throne of Ahaz - "Fenris" (from "On Twilight Enthroned", 1996)

Hi Vinny. My suggestions for August:

Torture - "Ignominous Slaughter" (from "Storm Alert", 1989)

Morbid Saint - "Crying for Death" (from "Spectrum of Death", 1990)

Vulcano - "Death Metal" (from "Bloody Vengeance", 1986)

Grave Desecrator - "Black Vengeance" (from "Insult", 2010)

Crucified Mortals - "Dusk of the Advent" (from "Psalms of the Dead Choir", 2016)

Pentagram Chile - "The Death of Satan" (from "The Malefice", 2013)

Lawnmower Deth - "Betty Ford's Clinic" (from "Ooh Crikey It's... Lawnmower Deth", 1990)

As Ben notes, this is a release I am already familiar with, so here is my review:

Tlazcaltiliztli is an album of thick as molasses death doom riffs and awesome bellowing growls for vocals that sound like a wounded bison and remind me somewhat of Japanese death doomers Coffins. Whilst the bulk of the album consists of this crushingly brutal assault on the listener's sensibilities there are also some really cool indiginous Mexican folk interludes that make for something a bit different and are undeniably an interesting diversion. The death doom side of things isn't the most earth-shatteringly awesome or original metal you are ever likely to hear, but it is authentic and it's chugging riffs are heavy as fuck and if you are a fan of extreme doom metal then that, along with the more interesting indiginous music interjections, should at least merit you checking it out (just don't try spelling it!) Me, I'm always a sucker for anything that sounds like it was derived from the early Autopsy sound, which this assuredly is, so for me this is a big thumbs up. Sadly, it is very short at 32 minutes, but it's probably better to leave the listener wanting more than boring them with overlong LPs so I have no complaints about that either.

4/5

July 2023

1. Worship of Keres - "Book 3" (from "Bloodhounds for Oblivion", 2016) [submitted by Sonny]

2. Decadence Dust - "Lighthouse" (from "Lighthouse", 2023)

3. Black Capricorn - "Snake of the Wizard" (from "Cult of Blood", 2022)

4. Toadliquor - "Gnaw" (from "Feel My Hate - The Power Is the Weight - R.I.P. Cain", 1993)

5. Liturgy - "Veins of God" (from "Aesthethica", 2011) [submitted by Daniel]

6. Church of Misery - "Come and Get Me Sucker (David Koresh)" (from "Born Under a Mad Sign", 2023)

7. Nightfucker - "Poisoned Wine" (from "Leechfeast / Nightfucker Split EP", 2023)

8. Windhand - "Halcyon" (from "Eternal Return", 2018) [submitted by Vinny]

9. Messa - "Babalon" (from "Belfry", 2016)

10. Tragedia - "Tiamat" (from "El libro de Enoc", 2023)

11. Minotauri - "Doom Metal Alchemy" (from "Minotauri", 2004)

12. Capilla Ardiente - "The Spell of Concealment" (from "The Siege", 2019)

13. Rippikoulu - "Pimeys yllä Jumalan maan" (from "Musta seremonia", 1993) [submitted by Daniel]

14. Warning - "Footprints" (from "Watching from a Distance", 2006) [submitted by Vinny]

15. Khanate - "To Be Cruel" (from "To Be Cruel", 2023) [submitted by Sonny]

Yeah, Diabolical Conquest is marginally my favourite too, but Onward to Golgotha is just so primal that it really appeals to the caveman in me I suppose. I am just so at home with such an uncomplicated, menacing and utterly abyssal sound that I can't honestly rate it any lower.

What is of massive regret for me is that it had taken me until I am sixty years old to find a sound that I feel so deeply. Sure I've dabbled with it via the likes of Winter's Into Darkness, but bands like Incantation and Autopsy produce something that I feel like I connect with on a molecular level. Sounds like bullshit I know, but it is what it is.

Incantation - Onwards to Golgotha (1992)

Incantation have been one of my big discoveries since joining Metal Academy and their 1998 album, Diabolical Conquest, is one of my top five death metal albums of all time. So, rewinding six years to May of 1992 and the deathly New Jersey crew unleashed their debut, Onward to Golgotha. Incantation were originally formed by John McEntee and Paul Ledney, both of death thrashers Revenant, in 1986 and by the time of the debut's release the band had already gone through several line-up changes, which seems to have been an issue that has dogged the band throughout their almost 35 year history.

When Incantation released Onward to Golgotha it must have become apparent to everyone that the thunderous and cavernous abyssal death metal vibe pioneered by the likes of Autopsy had just been lifted to another level. Onward to Golgotha is the soundtrack to a subterranean hellscape that had only been hinted at before, but which now was revealed in all it's deathly and fiery glory, an album that exuded a demonic evilness that sought to corrupt and defile anyone caught in it's aural embrace. This is an album that should have the subtitle "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

There is a foul gritiness to the sound of the guitar riffing that is so overwhelmingly hellish that I swear I could detect a noxious, sulphurous odour emanating from my speakers whilst listening to it. Then, as if that wasn't enough, Craig Pillard's deep death-growls intoning their blasphemous diatribes push things well beyond all that had gone before and it was apparent that a new king ruled in hell. Onward to Golgotha's forty-five minutes is unrelentingly bruising and brutal-sounding, with even the slower doom death sections seemingly serving only to torturously draw the riffs out and enhance the menace and when the band really let rip, like they do on Immortal Cessation, it feels like you are being physically battered, such is the brutality on show. The solos are fast and furious dagger-slashes that serve only to rub salt into the wounds caused by the flying debris from the maelstrom of the breakneck riffing and are for people who think Kerry King sounds too much like Jimmy Page!

This is real primal music, music that is completely shorn of all sophistication and pretension and doesn't try to be anything other than what it is. It is so neanderthal-sounding that I swear drummer Jim Roe is banging on a mastodon skull with a pair of human femurs. I think Incantation may well be usurping Autopsy as my favourite death metal band because this is exactly the kind of stuff I lose my shit over. For me, this is undiluted essence of death metal and is one of my favourite releases ever.

5/5

A mixed bag for me this month with a huge spread in appeal (or lack of it), but I did get through them all again.

Vinny gets the award for top feature this month with Apparition's glorious celebration of OSDM., Feel.

The Fallen: Hexer - Cosmic Doom Ritual (2017) 5/5

The Horde: Apparition - Feel (2021) 4.5/5

The Pit: Nocturnal Graves - An Outlaw's Stand (2022) 4/5

The North: Lunar Aurora - Andacht (2007) 4/5

The Gateway: Katatonia - Sky Void of Stars (2023) 4/5

The Revolution: Suicide Silence - The Black Crown (2011) 3.5/5

The Sphere: Strapping Young Lad - Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing (1995) 3/5

The Infinite: Dødheimsgard - Black Medium Current (2023) 2.5/5

The Guardians: Darkmoon Blade - Darkmoon Rising (2022) 2.5/5

I am no expert on Katatonia by any means, I really like Brave Murder Day and really dislike Last Fair Deal Gone Down, so my opinion on them is "variable" at best. Still, approaching Sky Void of Stars with no strong expectation either way, I was quite pleasantly surprised by what I found within it's fifty minutes runtime. 

This is a really tuneful and melodic album that references the progressive sounds of bands like Porcupine Tree and Riverside. Unsurprisingly, as he wrote all the material on Sky Void of Stars, the vocal performance of Jonas Renkse is absolutely central to the album. It is fortunate, then, that his performance is top-notch with a strong presence and impressive consistency. I don't wish to demean the contributions of the other band members as they too are of the highest quality, but they are more restrained and are used as the foundation and support of the vocals. This feels similar to the way that the E-Street Band back Springsteen's singing, they are all superb musicians in their own right, but The Boss is the main event. Personally, I would have liked to have heard the band as a whole let off the leash and the album lean more towards a progressive sound with some lengthier instrumental sections. There were a couple of times where it seemed about to happen, but it never really materialised. That said, that is obviously not what was intended here, the focus being less on progressive instrumental explorations and more on precise melodies and memorable musical phrases, with the lyrics and vocals being placed front and centre. To that end Sky Void of Stars is inordinately successful and I got plenty of enjoyment out if it. No doubt I will return to it at some future point, the scales of judgment on Katatonia now weighted more towards the positive as far as I am concerned.

4/5

I don't really know enough blackgaze albums to generalise I suppose, as it's a genre I have little interest in, but the Sadness track just felt so jarringly out of place in The North playlist that I felt I needed to ask the question. The blackgaze I have heard strikes me as using the black metal toolbox to produce music that is so far away from black metal's roots as to be an almost unrelated style of music. As for folk metal not sitting in The North, what would be the alternative home for it, because I can't really see it elsewhere?

I think I am probably just feeling a bit disillusioned with black metal and the direction it is taking. I understand the desire to evolve a musical style, but a lot of modern black metal acts seem to be moving so far away from the artistic core and aesthetic that it is losing it's appeal for me personally. I'm not trying to set myself up as some "guardian of trve kult black metal" or anything like that, as I think some of the more modern stuff is great, but some of it is a step too far for me and I will have to leave it to you young 'uns!!

Not enough evil in my North playlist?! That's something I'll have to remedy next month. 

I'm looking forward to it already!!

Interesting playlist this month Ben. It felt like it had a very "modern" slant to it. I must admit I was longing for a bit more savagery and evilness as it progressed, but I guess the nature of black metal is moving ever away from what it stood for in the Nineties and it is becoming much more experimental and/or melodic as it is assimilated into the musical zeitgeist. I suppose I sound like an old bastard moaning about how things were better in my day (they were!!), but I miss the blasphemic, two-fingers-to-the-world attitude of the bands of yore. Enough bitching anyway, big plusses were Akhlys (obviously), Lamp of Murmuur and Ifernach in addition to my own choices of Árstíðir Lifsins and Emperor. I just can't get my head around Sadness being on a black metal playlist, though - sorry.

Absolutely killer playlist this month, Vinny. Nicely done, especially seeing as it was mostly free of the bigger names. The Cacophony and Sieges Even tracks were the only ones that didn't work for me which, seeing as they were the technical tracks, is no great surprise. The first ten tracks especially made for a brilliant opening salvo. Must check out that Slaughterlord album ASAP.

Firstly, there are plenty of good ideas within Black Medium Current, and I really do get why people would love it. To me though, it is a bit like the Oscar-winning movie, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once with just too many ideas being crammed into it's (admittedly, suitably lengthy) runtime. I also understand that the fault is entirely mine and my lack of sophistication, or maybe intellectual capacity, are the real reason I can't wrap my head around it's myriad of ideas, but I just can't hold everything it has to offer in my head all at once. Another issue for me is, frankly, the terrible clean vocals that are the real villain of the piece here. I much prefer the black metal sections because it means we get a few moments of respite from this vocal torture.

I did enjoy how they employ the keyboards and the occasional excursion into space rock was welcome. To be honest, though, I think Deathspell, Blut aus Nord and especially Oranssi Pazuzu do this sort of thing much better (or at least, more to my own taste). I have been determined to give it sufficient listens to allow it to reveal itself, but after four full listen-throughs, I have been relieved every single time when it has ended, so I guess it is just one of those albums that really isn't for me.

2.5/5

Darkmoon Blade are a heavy metal three-piece from South Carolina, all three members are also in the black metal outfit, Molag and a couple of them are in melodic death/black crew Somat, all of which have released albums in the last year or so, so they have been busy bees indeed. DB seem to be striving to reproduce the lightning-in-a-bottle of early Venom, but almost seem to be trying too hard. Whereas Venom produced their classic material seemingly effortlessly and so consequently authentically, Darkmoon Blade sound forced, never more than in the vocal department where singer Velda seems so intent on reproducing Cronos' rasping delivery that he sounds uncomfortable and staid, never coming anywhere near the Geordies' natural-sounding likeability but rather producing more of a tight-throated croak.

It isn't all bad news, some of the riffing and lead work is quite fun and although the band are really only producing very basic heavy metal, when they hit their stride they provide some passable headbanging material. Of course it has to be brought up, but the more ambitious My Darling in the Fire is really bad. The vocals are at their nadir on this track and the songwriting seems to be trying to take a leaf out of King Diamond's mini-opera-like style, but is so all over the place that it is actually cringeworthy.

I really don't like doing down metal albums but this isn't anything I could, in all honesty, say I would ever return to as the bad significantly outweighs the good and it is hard to forgive such a poor vocal performance.

2.5/5