Sonny's Forum Replies

Betrayed - Our Option EP [Demo] (1989)

Valparaíso's Betrayed formed in 1988 and Our Option is a four-track demo released in 1989 on cassette. The band went on to record one full-length, "1879 Tales of War", released in 1990 before splitting in 1994. Of course, like seemingly every other 80's chilean thrash band, they reformed in the new millenium (2007), releasing a couple of EPs so far.

Our Option has more of a crossover appeal than the earlier releases from the chilean scene, having a much punkier feel about it. The opening title track combines punky, d-beat style grooves with Scott Ian-influenced, choppy, chuggy riffs channelled straight from the grooves of Among the Living and is a lively opener that very much has a crossover thrash, snotty-nosed, rebellious aesthetic.

The second track, "You Are a Worm" leans even more into the Anthrax influence, whilst continuing with the crossover punkiness - at least initially. This is because it suddenly stops and gives way to a gentle guitar refrain that gives a bit of a pause in the action before the riffing kicks in again, accompanied by an energetic guitar solo which is followed by another breakneck charge to song's end. Meanwhile singer Blas Mateluna spits out the lyrics of everyday injustices with a suitable level of venomous anger, which is ironic seeing as he ultimately became a real estate agent!

Third track is the band's eponymous track, the anti-religious "Betrayed" which, again, displays an enormous amount of youthful energy and vitality and a really cool main riff, but which also sees them struggling technically in places, especially during the guitar solos which tend to get a bit messy. The demo is closed out by a short acoustic guitar piece, accompanied by storm sound affects, called "Alleviation" which is actually very nice, but very much at odds with the rest of the demo and I am not sure what the purpose of it's inclusion was, other than to illustrate another side to the band.

Soundwise the demo is OK and I have heard much worse, although it is obviously nothing like you would expect from modern demo recordings. Musically, I like the band's energy and punky spirit and they come across as a lively bunch whose shows were probably great fun. That said, they were obviously still quite young at the time and their technical skills would need some developing, but their songwriting was quite ambitious for a crossover band, although it too probably still needed work. Overall it's worth a listen and is a neat example of what sort of thing was going on in the metal underground in the late 1980's.

3/5

Ufomammut - Hidden (2024)

If you don't know what to expect from a new Ufomammut album by now, then you really haven't been paying attention. By this stage Ufomammut are a band who have a firmly established style and long ago perfected the recipe to deliver whatever they wish to express with their music, so if you haven't been seduced by the sounds this italian trio produce by now, then this won't do anything to change your opinion and you are probably best moving along.

So anyway, if you are still with me, Hidden is the Italians' eleventh full-length album and comprises six tracks of their trademark spacey, sludgy stoner metal. Blasting straight off with the ten-minute Crookhead, they make their intentions known with a mighty stoner riff that possesses a thundering roar usually only produced by a NASA rocket during take off. The key to Ufomammut's sound is the extreme distortion applied to both six- and four-strings and the driving nature of the riffs and rhythm section that propel a huge wall of sound with an irresistible kineticism, perfectly illustrated here on the opener. Combine this with the restrained, washed-out vocals and the inclusion of an arsenal of electronic beeps and squiggles and you have an exceedingly effective metal approximation of a rocket journey through space, with old "Space Ritual"-era Hawkwind being a quite obvious influence. Yet, despite all the spacey, wacked-out, stoner vibes, Ufomammut are also ridiculously heavy and when they slow the tempo down, the seismic ripples they generate could topple office blocks. Just check out the middle heavy section of the otherwise creepy-sounding second track, "Kismet", if you need an illustration of just how ball-crushingly heavy the trio can be.

For me, the attraction of Ufomammut is that they are a band in whose album's I can lose myself and just mentally float, drinking in the cosmic atmosphere that they create without having to ponder the context or the nuances of what the band are trying to convey. The experience is the point with these Italians, not the need to marvel at their ingenuity or technical prowess and that really is the mark of success for any stoner-adjacent band, the ability to be able to transport the listener to an alternative state of being through the expression of their art and if that is how I am to judge them, then I would have to declare Hidden to be an unqualified success.

4/5

One Sabbath song that has always irritated the shit out of me and spoils a brilliant album is "Am I Going Insane (Radio)" from Sabotage. I f***in' hate that song!!

My Dying Bride - A Line of Deathless Kings (2006)

I have a bit of an up and down relationship with the Yorkshire gothic doom crew which I have touched on many times previously. They are a band within whose albums I usually find plenty to enjoy, but they are prone to annoying me with an overly pretentious theatricality that, I personally think, demeans them and diminishes their work. To put it more succinctly MDB are a band I often like, but hardly ever love. Well, maybe that is about to change, because it appears that with A Line of Deathless Kings they finally shed the aspects of their persona that grate on me and accentuated the aspects that appeal. They had done the same to a lesser degree on 2001's The Dreadful Hours which, up until now, had been my favourite MDB album, but here they strip back the overtly gothic schtick even further and rely on their doom metal credentials instead to generate the mournful and melancholy atmosphere, being much the better for it, in my opinion. This approach also allows for some seriously heavy moments to thrust their monumental heads above the tragic atmospherics, the killer riffs of "Love's Intolerable Pain" and "One of Beauty's Daughters" (even with the synths) being such examples that reveal a Line of Deathless Kings to be a high tide mark of heaviness for the band.

The stripping away of the keys (for the most part), strings and Aaron Stainthorpe's ham-fisted, vampiric overacting seems to have given the band a fresh sense of direction and focus and produced an album that I find it much easier to identify with. They still manage to generate a mournful sense of longing, but it feels somehow more honest because it comes directly from the songwriting and not from the addition of layers of atmospherics, making the emotional heft feel more visceral and vital. Along with the atmospherics, the Yorkshiremen have also shed any remaining death metal influence on their sound resulting in their most pure doom metal album to date. The production, of course, is terrific with a clear, yet weighty feel that serves all of the members very well indeed, allowing all their contributions to be appreciated in full.

By the time of this ninth full-length it seems My Dying Bride had gained enough confidence in their own abilities to stop hiding behind the atmospherics and production and lay it all out in the open. I, for one, am absolutely ecstatic because A Line of Deathless Kings shows MDB to genuinely be the band I had always hoped they were capable of being. Sometimes a bit less is a lot more.

4.5/5

Moonspell - Wolfheart (1995)

Contrary to appearances, I don't think I am especially dogmatic when it comes to metal appreciation and one illustration of this is the softening of my stance regarding gothic metal over the last couple of years. At one time I wouldn't have given an album such as Wolfheart the time of day, but exposure to top gothic metal perpetrators such as Paradise Lost and Draconian has definitely shifted my view on the genre and what it is capable of. I recently listened to Moonspell's 2008 album, Night Eternal and I enjoyed it quite a bit, awarding it a princely four stars, so I went into the band's debut, 1995's Moonspell, with high hopes.

Was this optimism justified then? Well, yes... and no. Musically there was plenty here that took my fancy, the guitar work especially standing out. The tone of the six-strings is great and the bass supplies a nice deep bottom end. The riffs are dolorous, heavy and quite memorable but the solos are the best thing about the album, in fact it's a pity the leads aren't given a bit more of a free rein as I would have liked to hear more from Tanngrisnir and Mantus in the vein of the soloing in the latter part of the opener.

Unfortunately Wolfheart suffers from the same bugbear that I have always had with a lot of gothic metal, that of excessive cheesiness. This takes the form of a heavy-handed application of synths, smothering a number of the tracks with a suffocating layer of 1980's-like keyboards that just doesn't sit well with me at all. The synths aren't the only issue though because the vocals annoyed me almost as much. The gruff, deathly male vocals are fine, but the forced, deep, clean male vocals that seem intended to mimic Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula still sound as ludicrous as I have always found that style of singing to be. There is, of course, several tracks with supposedly ethereal female vocals but, and I have no wish to be unkind, the effect is ruined because, to be frank, Birgit Zacher is here sounding like she is fighting to stay in tune, with "Love Crimes" especially sounding like she is struggling. Then, as if that wasn't enough there is also the track Trebaruna which is a full-on folk metal cheesefest and does absolutely nothing positive for me whatsoever.

Overall, then, I would have to say that although Wolfheart has some aspects I really enjoyed, especially when it is at it's heaviest or when the leads are firing off solos, the album's inherent theatricality is just too jarring for me to excuse completely, no matter how much I may enjoy it's positives and so ultimately it's score has to be accordingly middle-of-the-road.

3/5

Necrosis - The Search (1988)

The full-length album, The Search, was the only official release from the first iteration of Santiago's Necrosis before they split in 1990 and is the earliest chilean thrash album I could find. It was released in July of 1988 on vinyl and limited to 3500 copies with four of it's eight tracks having debuted on the 1987 Kingdom of Hate demo, the lineup here being identical to the one that was responsible for the demo.

As I said during my review of Kingdom of Hate, Necrosis' sound is very much rooted in the Bay Area thrash scene, particular touchpoints being Exodus and Testment and The Search is more of the same, with mid- to fast-paced chugging riffs, tight, aggressive guitar solos and an energetic rhythm section. Songwriting-wise, Necrosis go for a fairly orthodox approach, but they do like to incorporate several tempo changes during most of the tracks, so they seldom turn in tracks that are just generic chugathons and they even have a couple of quite progressive numbers. I have only managed to listen to Necrosis' back catalogue on YouTube, so I'm not sure if this was the case with the original recordings, but even though the full-length has a deeper, bassier sound, the demo actually has more clarity with the later recording sounding a bit dampened and less crisp than the former.

So, any production issues aside, is it any good? Well yeah, it's not bad actually and whilst I wouldn't place it quite as high as either Bonded By Blood or The Legacy, in my opinion it certainly holds it's own against the follow-ups to both of those albums. Kicking off with the title track it immediately dives headfirst into the moshpit with a killer riff straight from San Fran Bay, never really letting up for the whole forty-odd minutes runtime. Second track "Fall in the Last Summer" was for sure influenced by Anthrax's New York sound and Among the Living in particular, originally appearing on the demo, which was released not too long after the Anthrax album and is a decent take on Scott Ian and co's more jagged style of thrashing. The nine-minute "Prayer" goes even further taking a few twists and turns by combining both New York and Bay Area styles into one thrashtastic epic which makes the album worth hearing on it's own. Ultimately, I guess accusations of The Search being derivative hold some weight, to a degree, but with a track like "Prayer" the band seem to have been genuinely trying to stamp their own personality onto the burgeoning South American thrash scene.

As for the new tracks, I have already covered the title track (which is the pick of the four), "From the Sea" is a less than one minute bass guitar instrumental a bit like the latter part of "Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)", "Liar" has a nice chuggy riff and is very solid and the last of the new tracks, "Golden Valley", is a decent enough instrumental with some nice soloing. Track-for-track I would have to say that the material from the demo is the stronger.

As much as I would love a copy of The Search, it is currently shifting for £80-£200 on Discogs!! I enjoyed it a lot, but not quite that much. Still, it is a little bit of thrash metal history, especially for anyone interested in the early South American scene, so the touts will price it accordingly. Incidentally, The Search was re-recorded in 2009 by Kingdom of Hate, who are comprised of original members of Necrosis. Although the production is much, much better, I think a significant portion of the vitality and youthful vigour of the original is lost in the process, making it a diminished release as a result.

3.5/5

Katatonia - Discouraged Ones (1998)

The latest subject of my quest to rate all the albums on the Fallen chart has led me to Katatonia's 1998 third full-length. I've got a bit of a troubled history with Katatonia, with my earliest exposure to them, Last Fair Deal Gone Down not at all being to my liking. However, both Brave Murder Day and the subsequent Sounds of Decay EP restored my confidence in the Swedes and I enjoyed both quite a bit. Oh dear, between those and this, though, things went horribly wrong. I found this to be incredibly insipid, with the comparison that kept leaping into my mind being "it's metal Coldplay". I have no intention of providing a full review because that would entail me having to listen to it several more times, a prospect that is just too daunting for me to contemplate, even though my doctor says I need to get my blood pressure down and listening to something this bland on hard rotation may well manage that. Sure there were a couple of decent tracks, "Cold Ways" and "Saw You Drown" are quite nice, but the vocals are the most banal I have heard this side of Chris Martin. I'm really sorry to anyone who does love this (I know Ben is a fan) and I mean no disrespect, but I disliked it immensely. Discouraged Ones? Yeah, I'm one of 'em.

2/5 

There’s no reason why you’d need to concentrate on brand-new releases over the incredible weight of the previous 53 years of metal to achieve that buzz though. You’re actually better off concentrating on older releases that you haven’t checked out yet but have stood the test of time.

Absolutely, Daniel. And i do that too, as my embracing of the Horde and it's previously undiscovered (by me) wonders will attest and which provided me many such great moments. But, as is evident, my particular passion is all things doom and by now I have covered an awful lot of the older stuff worth listening to and, rightly or wrongly, I like to keep abreast of what is currently going on in the doom metal scene.

I have also been trying to fill in any gaps in my Fallen knowledge by going through the releases I haven't rated yet on the Academy clan chart. I know many of you will probably roll your eyes at my doom metal obsession and lack of diversity in my listening habits, but I make no apologies for it - I'm too old for that shit any more and nowadays I like to do what I like to do and fuck the rest (curmudgeonly old man rant ovet!)

There really isn't THAT much more music than in a pre-streaming world. The major difference is the endless number ways for people to publish their music.

Gone are the days where you had to be on a major record label (Universal, Warner, EMI, etc.) in order for your music to be heard on a inter/national scale. Now you can just upload a video to YouTube and before you know it, you'll be famous for fifteen minutes. Unlike Vinny, I still keep up to date with modern releases, but on a vastly smaller scale than I did five years ago. Listening to new music for its own sake just to find out it isn't very good did a huge number on my mental health and I wondered if I should retire from music reviewing. 

For me, keeping up with the times is essential to know what the kids find "hip," even if I don't like it, and then try assisting them towards similar sounding music from the present or past that they may have never heard before. And as a musician myself, having a finger on the trigger ensures that I have steady work.

If you look at the stats, Saxy, then there is indeed much more metal released now than there were in days past. According to the RYM genre release graph in 1980 when the NWOBHM was kicking in in earnest there were 268 metal releases that year, then first hitting 1000+ in 1985. By 1990 it was just under 2500, by the year 2000 it was up to almost 4500 and by 2010 it hit 9k. 2020 & 2022 saw over 13000 metal releases each. 

I understand people who say they are no longer interested in following new music and, sure, I sometimes question the wisdom of doing it myself. If I only listened to the stuff I own as physical copies I would never be short of something I hadn't listened to in a good while, so why bother? Well, for me, I may well be like the smack addict trying to relive that incredible first high. I just keep chasing that unbeatable buzz I get when discovering something new that blows me away, no matter how much shit I have had to wade through to find it, it always seems worth while. Also, now I am getting into my twilight years, most of the surprises life throws your way are downright unpleasant, so it's great to find something unexpected that is amazing rather than fucking dreadful.

I don't think there's too much music out there to be honest. I don't think there can EVER be too much music at our disposal actually as the intention was never that people should attempt to listen to literally all of it. That's a post-internet concept that's the result of people growing up with Napster, YouTube, Spotify, etc. i.e. a quantity over quality approach. As someone with a very broad taste profile, that whole concept just seems like madness to me. If only there was an online resource that helped people to identify metal music that was likely to fall into their unique taste profile & provided a forum for discussion with like-minded fans from around the world. Hhmmm....

Yeah, I wasn't implying that anyone would want to listen to everything, but what I am curious about is, with the equivalent of 200 metal releases a week being issued, how do people decide what is worth their time?

I tend to, first of all, seek out the new releases of acts I already know that I enjoy. Secondly I look to releases that other people whose opinions I respect are recommending. Then, if I fancy any further exploring of the latest stuff then I will cast around a little and see if anything sounds interesting to me.

Grand Magus - Sunraven (2024)

Grand Magus are one of my favourite bands, a go-to act when I long for some epic norse heavy metal and a consistent provider of fist-pumping and horns-raising battle hymns. Sunraven is the trio's tenth album and comes a full five years after the very solid, if not exactly earth-shattering, Wolf God. Well, was it worth the wait? I would give an unequivocal "hell yeah!" To my ears this is the band's best since 2012's stellar The Hunt.

Metal has become a very diverse scene over the years. There are bands who push the envelope of what it is to be metal, there are bands that strive to be ever more extreme in brutality or heaviness, there are yet others who seek to elicit deep emotions and those who create gorgeous, sweeping and epic soundscapes. All those are great and deserve every respect, but one of the most maligned types of metal bands that exist today are those that know what their fanbase expect and enjoy and who deliver that in the form of expertly crafted songs that tap into the days when fans listened to metal for enjoyment and to pump their fists in the air whilst banging their heads out of sheer exuberance for the glorious sounds leaping at them from out of their speakers. Grand Magus are one such band and, in my opinion, one of the best. This is metal that is meant to be experienced and enjoyed, not dissected by chin-stroking pseudo-intellectuals who would shit themselves at the mere thought of diving into a moshpit.

Sunraven is a very tight album, it's nine tracks run for a total of only thirty-five minutes, so there is no self-indulgent wankery here, this is to-the-point and succinct metal that encapsulates the very essence of the genre. The production is great, with superb clarity and a nice depth to the sound, especially in it's vinyl format. Grand Magus have few contemporary rivals in heavy metal when it comes to writing sing-along choruses and memorable riffs that swirl around your head for days. I for one find it almost impossible to get through a GM album without bawling out at least one chorus, much to the consternation of all the other dog walkers in the woods that day, I dare say!

The rhythm section of bassist Fox and drummer Ludwig are terrific, the drums here sound excellent in fact, and the basslines are economical and powerful, the two operating as a tight and efficient unit, but, let's be honest, Grand Magus are defined by guitarist and vocalist, JB and he is on fine form throughout Sunraven's runtime. He has a strong and fairly powerful, yet unstrained voice with a clear delivery which enables the listener to discern all the lyrics easily. His guitar work is impressive, without being even remotely showy, with well-written, memorable riffs and some of his finest solos to date, sounding natural and efficient but also epic and vital at the same time, which is not always an easy feat to achieve.

There really isn't much more to say, Sunraven is unapologetically business as usual for Grand Magus, but when your business is just so fucking metal then who's going to complain. They take great delight in the tropes of heavy metal and celebrate their own scandinavian heritage and epic myths with pride and affection it seems. I, for one, am glad that a band like Grand Magus, who possess an instinctive feel for metal, still exist and have carved out a dedicated following of nuts who are still able to celebrate the genre for the escapist, life-affirming wonder that it is capable of being. If tracks like !Skyborne", "Wheel of Pain", "Hour of the Wolf" and the title track aren't capable of getting your head nodding and your fingers twitching of their own accord in an attempt to throw the horns, then you probably need to check your pulse... or at least your metal credibility!

4.5/5

Warpath - Alternative Dose EP (1988)

Warpath were formed in 1988 by Marco Cusatto and Octavio Arizala of Rust, a fledgling thrash band who were veterans of the Santiago scene, opening for acts like Pentagram and Massakre. They turned in three demos from 1988 to 1990 before splitting, with Alternative dose being the first of the three, released in May of '88. It was released on cassette and featured four tracks, "Warpath", "Morphine Helps You Die", "Advent Days Visitors" and "Alternative Dose" with a runtime of 18 minutes. The demo has a decent sound, although it could do with a bit more of a beefy bottom end, but it has good clarity and allows all the band members to be heard reasonably well.

Technically, the band sound reasonably adept and the songs are terrific thrashers in the vein of early Megadeth, with Marco Cusatto's vocals sounding convincingly similar to Dave Mustaine (without the sneer). The riffs are great and are typical of the chuggers of the time with Cusatto's solos also impressing, sitting somewhere between the primal viciousness of Kerry King and the more adept shredding of Mustaine or Hammett. The duo of tracks that make up side one of the tape are the strongest here with "Warpath" really kicking ass straight out of the blocks with energetic riffing and a nicely developed song structure. "Morphine Helps You Die" probably just edges it, though, as it rips through it's riffs and shreds with a take-no-prisoners attitude. The two tracks on side two don't quite hold to the high standard of the A-side, but are still pretty solid, albeit not quite as well-written.

Overall this is a nice find and is a real diamond in the rough. On the strength of the four tracks here alone, it seems a shame that the band were unable to continue beyond 1990 and hadn't, at that point, released any official material. Of course, like a number of the bands featured here, Warpath reformed in the 2000's (2007 actually), finally releasing a full-length album, Rust, in 2016 which actually features three of the songs from this demo - all except "Advent Days Visitors" which is undoubtedly the weakest track here. To date they are still to release a follow-up to Rust, but are still a going concern apparently.

4/5

Grin - Hush (2024)

With Hush comprising 16 tracks and a runtime of forty minutes, it is obvious that Grin are a different beast from most of their peers in the world of stoner sludge metal, much preferring to build heaviness from the pile-up effect of a number of short, focussed sludgy blasts rather than extended stoner jams. Comprising husband and wife team, Jan (drums, vocals) and Sabine Oberg (bass), both of sludge band Earth Ship and stoner / psychedelic rock band Slowshine, this is their fourth full-length, maintaining their strike-rate of an album every even-numbered year since 2018. I missed previous offering, 2022's Phantom Knocks, but, to be honest, Hush, is very much in similar vein to 2020's Translucent Blades, so I guess that the duo have hit upon a formula they are happy to stick with and with Jan producing, mixing and mastering the album, he is ensured that he controls the vision.

Apart from the short song lengths, they also differentiate themselves from most of their peers by disdaining the use of six-stringers. The riffs are powered by Sabine's powerful, driving bass and the leadwork, as so far as it exists, is provided by synths. A fair number of the tracks also have a heavy psychedelic component with swirling synths and Jan providing washed out clean vocals rendered even more trippy by a noticeable echoing effect, with a couple (Neon Skies, Vortex) even sounding like metallised versions of the neo-psychedelia of the 90's Madchester Baggy scene. Whilst the psychedelic component is significant, this is no lightweight affair, it's bottom-heavy stoner metal bolstered by a sludgy influence courtesy of Jan's harsh vocals and the driving rhythms, Sabine's bass underpinning everything with a mega-solid foundation.

Ultimately, though, as much as I enjoyed Hush, it is an album I like rather than love. This is mainly due to the fact that I would like to have heard some of the ideas presented here expanded upon beyond the two or three-minute, self-imposed limit to the tracks' runtimes, some of them sounding like snippets or incomplete ideas in need of further development. I do like their fusing of sludgy metal and light and spacey psychedelia and I found plenty that appealed to me, but I feel that the promise of the premise is never fully realised and that is a shame because it is an idea that works well.

3.5/5

Yeah, both of the ...Sermon bands are still on my "to listen to" list, Xephyr, and I have quite high hopes  for them, so it's good to see them at the top of your list. Inter Arma are another I have enjoyed in the past, so hopefully that's a good one too. I listened to  the Thou album a bit ago and enjoyed it, as I always do, but haven't worked up a review yet, hence it's missing from my list.

Listened to Ponte del Diavolo today and that's going to go into #5 spot on my list. I would recommend it if you haven't heard it.

Ponte del Diavolo - Fire Blades from the Tomb (2024)

Following a trio of EP's, none of which I have heard yet to be honest, Fire Blades from the Tomb marks the debut full-length from Turin gothic metallers, Ponte del Diavolo (which translates as The Devil's Bridge). I must admit I have been blindsided somewhat by this, as I have been continually slipping it to the bottom of my "to-listen" pile, for no reason other than I knew nothing about the band But that was a major miscalculation on my behalf because this is a really interesting listen and reminds me a little of Belgium's Messa in that the band seem to be trying to break out from genre conformity and produce something less predictable, yet still completely listenable. They aren't quite as genre-bending or progressive as Messa, however, with the majority of the tracks here on Fire Blades From the Tomb being assembled from recognisable gothic and black metal components. The gothic elements are the most prevalent, particularly the vocals provided by Erba del Diavolo (real name Elena Camusso) who's vocal style is very reminiscent of The Banshees' Siouxsie Sioux (who is a particular favourite of mine) and the, for want of a better word, "twangy" quality to the guitar sound. It is the black metal elements that make themselves initially known, however, with opener "Demone" launching out of the blocks with a pummellng blastbeat, tremolo riff and a decidedly punky feel. The track then alternates between these punky black metal and lumbering doom-laden slower sections with Erba's soaring vocals tying it all together.

Fire Blades From the Tomb sees the band displaying a nice variation in their songwriting, though, as second track, "Covenant", has a decidedly more post-punk gothic feeling to it with Erba turning in a great performance from demented-sounding shouts to ethereal croons, the track even ends with an always weird-sounding theremin providing a 1950's sci-fi retro feel. Next up "Red as the Sex of She Who Lives in Death" is a brooding doomy gothic piece with Erba providing a powerful and strong vocal that is many miles away from the ethereal and washed-out vocal style often assosciated with female singers in gothic metal, the track's sinister atmosphere reinforced by the clarinet of guest musician Vittorio Sabelli (Dawn of a Dark Age) who actually features on three of the album's seven tracks. If further proof of the band's determination to expand their songwriting is needed, "La Razza" begins with an intro that sounds decidedly like classic space rock before exploding into blastbeat and tremolo riffing territory for a slab of blackened gothica.

I don't intend to do a track-by-track analysis, but merely cover the first four tracks in order to illustrate the variations in the material on offer here. Each of the tracks is sufficiently interesting, well-written and performed to stand on their own, but the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts, with the occult atmosphere building up over the course of the album, whether through brooding ruminations, ritualistic exhortations, haunting lamentations or outright vitriolic outbursts of violence. Fire Blades From the Tomb is well-written, expertly performed and quite ambitious in scope. It's ability to weave together a variety of styles into a coherent whole and maintain a consistent atmosphere is admirable and mark Ponte del Diavolo as a band to keep a close eye on in the future. As if that wasn't enough reson to check this out, in Erba del Diavolo they have a bona fide gothic metal star and a vocalist with a talent and versatility that elevates the music around her to another level. If you love dark, brooding, occult metal then I couldn't recommend this higher.

4/5

Jon Schaffer breaks his silence and expresses regret for his actions during the Jan 6th insurrection:

https://metaladdicts.com/jon-schaffer-i-profoundly-regret-my-actions-on-january-6th-2021

In the Woods... - Pure (2016)

Norway's In the Woods... originally split in 2000 after releasing three albums that saw them move away from the atmospheric black metal of their critically acclaimed debut, HEart of the Ages, in a more progressive direction that dabbled in the avant-garde. Reforming in 2014, Pure marks their comeback in grand style. Whilst it is also considered as another progressive metal release, Pure moves away from the more avant-garde aspects of the previous works, including ditching the dual male/female vocals found on both Omnio and Strange in Stereo and incorporating far more from gothic and doom metal. This makes for a less ambitious-sounding release, but comparing this with an album like Strange in Stereo is a little like comparing apples and oranges in that they are separate entities distinct from each other, both with their own merits and may as well be by different bands and as such comparing the two iterations of the band is a futile exercise.

As anyone who is familiar with my taste knows, the shift into a more doomy direction is something that is always going to find favour with me. To be clear, though, this isn't a doom metal album as such, it certainly deserves it's progressive metal tagging, but the generally slow- to medium-paced tempos, downtuned guitar and heavy bottom end provided by the robust production, when coupled with James Fogarty's languid vocal style and clear, ringing lead guitar work sets Pure firmly within the gothic metal territory inhabited by the likes of mid- to late-era Paradise Lost. The songs are tightly written, featuring some wonderful and memorable melodies and there are some nice touches, such as the subtle use of keyboards, especially when they reference a psychedelic Hammond organ sound on a couple of tracks, "This Dark Dream" seeing them used to greatest effect and the space rock atmospherics of "Transmission KRS" are one of my album highlights. In fact the psychedelic / space rock connection is such that there is even a point where I could swear the track "Cult of Shining Stars" directly references the riff and melody from Hawkwind's classic from Warriors on the Edge of Time, "Magnu". The performances are terrific, all the members seeming very confident in their own ability to deliver exactly what they envisioned conceptually and the production is beefy, yet retains excellent clarity allowing each member's contributions to be heard.

The first forty minutes are great, but for me, things get even better for the final three tracks when the band are joined by Green Carnation guitarist and long-time collaborator Bjørn Harstad. His guitar work is exceptional here with some truly sublime soloing, the previously referenced, ten-minute instrumental, "Transmission KRS" being an extended showcase of this and his solo towards the end of closing track, "Mystery of the Constellations" is almost up there with Dave Gilmour's "Comfortably Numb" for sheer soaring magnificence.

Of course, because of the modern internet-led obsession with experimentation and the ever-frantic search of metal fans for innovation, Pure's trading of the band's previous "avant-garde" work for well-crafted and performed songs with more traditional structures saw a number of fans bemoaning this turn of events. Well, more fools them, because this is an absolute top-drawer doomy prog metal release that, just sheer quality-wise, brings to mind post-Isa Enslaved and it's incomprehensible to me that a release of such quality could be considered a backward step.

4.5/5

Nimrod (later Nimrod B.C.) - Time of Changes (1988)

Nimrod B.C. were originally a four-piece thrash crew in existence from 1985-91 (as Nimrod). They reformed in 2007, splitting again in 2015 and then reforming once more in 2017. These later iterations leant more towards power metal than out and out thrash I believe. This four-track demo is the sum total of the original band's output and shows the band to be a more intense thrash / deaththrash entity than it's later selves.

The four tracks featured here are "Dark Land". "Time of Changes", "The Message" and "Nimrod" and the EP runs for almost 17 minutes. The sound isn't too bad at all, albeit a bit on the tinny side, but it is clear and gives a good indication of what the band must have sounded like at the time. All of these except the instrumental "The Message" appear on 2008's return full-length, Return to Babylon, albeit in new versions which emphasise a more USPM-style approach than the death-leaning, intense thrash of the originals. Me, I much prefer the raw intensity of these originals over the overblown production and OTT power metal vocals of the later versions. The demo does illustrate well that the band were more technically accomplished than some of their contemporaries, sounding more like a band that knew what they were about rather than a band finding their way. The four tracks are high tempo and pretty tight, well-written affairs that tap into the Slayer-isms of the early deaththrash outfits whilst still retaining something of the early Metallica sound as found on Kill 'Em All. Unfortunately this, like Massacre, is another case of a chilean band with huge potential failing to capitalise on that potential and falling off the radar until returning as a shadow of their younger selves. Still, this is a pretty good demo that is definitely worth a listen if you are interested in the early days of the chilean extreme metal scene.

Downfall of Nur - Umbras de Barbagia (2015)

Downfall of Nur is the brainchild of argentinian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Antonio Sanna and Umbras de Barbagia is his only full-length album to date. Vocal duties are undertaken by guest vocalist Dany Tee, a veteran of numerous acts from Buenos Aries' death and black metal scene. The album is a concept album, relating the tale of the downfall of the Nuragic civilization that populated the Meditteranean island of Sardinia during the Bronze Age, particularly as it relates to the gods and religious practices of the Nuragics.

This is realised through four lengthy tracks and an intro of paganistically-themed atmospheric black metal that, through it's dabblings into dark folk and ambient territory is reflective and pastoral at times and at others, breathtakingly majestic with huge riffs overlaid by traditional instruments such as pipes and strings (which may or may not be synthesized). The counterpoint to all this is provided by Dany Tee's piercing and anguished vocals which are of nerve-shredding intensity and serve to illustrate the tragedy unfolding on this forgotten people by the ruthless invaders who cast them down, the lyrics relating to the destruction and erasure of the gods and temples of the nuragic culture and of how those who fled still carried these beliefs with them, passing them down through the years.

OK, as I have revisited this over the years I must admit that I have had to shed some of my initial overeffusive praise and recency bias as others in the field, such as Saor or Panopticon have exceeded it's scope. That, however, doesn't mean this isn't an album worthy of your time, because it most certainly is if you enjoy either of those two acts mentioned, or high quality atmo-black generally. The musicianship is excellent, Antonio is evidently very accomplished on several instruments, his songwriting has a progressive narrative quality to it and Dany Tee's vocals are some of the most intense I have heard on an atmospheric black metal album. So, if you are in the market for quality black metal with a nice line in paganistic folk accompaniments then you would do well to lend this your ears.

4/5

These guys sound very interesting to me, Daniel. Did they carry on after this or were they a short-lived outfit?

MASSACRE - Beyond the Psychotic Redemption (1988)

Massacre's 1988 final demo is a four-track affair with a fifteen-minute runtime. Three of the tracks, "Inmolation", "Addicts to Insanity" and "Morbid Death" would ultimately surface on the 2001 album, Psychotic Redemption. This has got a pretty good sound with decent clarity, although the guitars are bit pushed down and the bass is elevated in the mix. By this time the band seem to have tempered their more outlandish ambitions and the four tracks presented here are much more straight-ahead slices of early deaththrash which sees them playing to their strengths, them never really being able to successfully pull off the more ambitious stuff convincingly.

So this tidy little EP of demos that seemed to have them sailing full ahead along with the winds of the zeitgeist should have seen Massacre sailing on to glory with the release of their debut album the following year. Yet, for some unknown reason the band abandoned the visceral deaththrash of their three demos and put out an album of chugging hard rock-infused heavy metal which seemed to flummox the entire fanbase they had amassed and saw them sink into obscurity for a dozen years, before returning after the turn of the millenium.

But, future faux-pas aside, this is an exhilharating and entertaining quarter-hour of south american deaththrash that is probably the pick of the band's three Eighties demos and is a testament to a band that should have had a much bigger impact on the brave new world of Nineties thrash and death metal.

Here I am once more trying to revive this thread. I'm going to go back a step or two here and listen to Massacre's 1986 full-length demo, the six-track "Altazor".

Massacre - Altazor (1986)

Massacre's second demo is a lengthier affair at 35 minutes with re-recordings of the first demo's three tracks and three new tracks, "Tortured to Die", "Misery Human's Son" and the title track, Altazor. The sound on this is much clearer than on the earlier demo, the vocals have lost most of that echoing effect that I found so annoying and the Slayer-like solos are more audible. You get an even better insight than on the earlier demo into what a great track "Pissing Into the Mass Grave" could be with the clearer recording letting that killer riff star. Of course this is all relative and this is still essentially rehearsal-quality soundwise, but if you are a veteran of listening to metal demos then you shouldn't find it too bad.

The first new track, "Tortured to Die" shows that by this stage it was apparent that Massacre were looking to the more extreme reaches of thrash metal and were most likely getting inspiration in how to achieve such extremity from the early demos of bands like Death and Possessed. The second new track "Misery Human's Son" is, to be perfectly blunt, a bit of a mess and illustrates as much as anything that maybe the band's ambition outstripped their ability to deliver at this point in time. The last new track, "Altazor", is better, being a much more straight forward thrasher with a breakneck pace and some frantic soloing, it is probably the best-realised of the new tracks and illustrates great promise.

Altazor closes out with re-recordings of "Death Poem" and "Our Everyday Blood" and both sound significantly better here than on the original demo, although "Death Poem" still suffers from a case of overkill as it just seems to be a little too ambitious, ultimately coming off as all over the place. I think this sums up the band really - when they are playing straight ahead, agrressive thrash (or deaththrash) then they are great, rifling off riffs and tearing it up with killer solos, but when they get overconfident and attempt to write and play more complex stuff, they come a bit unstuck with "Death Poem" and "Misery Human's Son" not really cutting it for me when compared to the other tracks. "Pissing Into the Mass Grave", "Tortured to Die" and "Altazor" in particular are worth a listen for any fan of South American thrash or death metal.

Yith - dread (2016)

Yith is a solo artist playing a hybrid of black and doom metal and "dread" was the project's debut full-length album (the album title should properly be all in lower case). Blackened doom metal has become more prevalent in the last decade or so, but a number of it's practitioners, such as The Flight of Sleipnir, are really doom metal bands using certain tropes from black metal, such as shrieking vocals and the odd temolo riff, while others will play a black metal section, then a slower, doom metal section and essentially alternate between the two, whereas Yith produce a genuine seamless melding of black and doom metal. This manifests as tracks that, in the main, follow doom metal pacing, although faster, blastbeat-driven sections rear their heads from time to time with a more significant bottom end than is present in most black metal, with the bass in particular having a decided prominence in the mix. on top of this a lot, in fact most, of the guitar work consists of tremolo riffs, even during the predominant doom sections and the vocals are strictly black metal derived howls and shrieks. This makes for a particularly bleak atmosphere with the melancholy of doom metal being accentuated by the icy frostiness of the black metal component, indeed "dread" is well-named.

The opener, "time and loss" is probably the most recognisably black metal track, opening up with a withering blackened onslaught, before hinting at things to come with a slower doom-laden middle section. For me, the duo of tracks that is the title track and "centuries of horror" are really where it's at with "dread". Following another trope common in black metal, a short, folky interlude called "remembrance", the title track oozes it's way into your concsciousness with an epic and ominous main riff that calls on all the decayed monumental majesty that doom metal atmospherics can muster. When this is coupled with Yith's demonic snarls then a special atmosphere is created that would certainly be at home as the backdrop to one of Lovecraft's tales of existential dread. Great though "dread" is, the next track "centuries of horror" is even better for my money. With a most epically monumental riff and ritualistic drumming it reaches back into primal depths and ancestral fears of the horrors of the unknown and the majesty and dangers of the natural world and is a towering paeon to man's deepest-seated fears.

The songs in general are well-constructed with a nice flow to the songwriting and Yith demonstrates a more than capable grasp of his instrumentation, at least to my uneducated ears. Overall, "dread" is a well put together and mature amalgamation of two distinct styles of metal from which Yith has fashioned an identity of his own and should appeal to anyone looking for a fresh fix of quality extreme doom that yet yearns for something a little different by someone who inherently understands the genre.

4.5/5

I’m very much the opposite to be honest. I came to Maiden through “Somewhere in Time”, “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” & “Live After Death” before heading back to their esrlier work & I have to admit that the Dianno albums always seemed to be a step down (a couple of steps down in some cases) from the Dickinson ones for me personally. In fact, the only Dianno record that I regard as being essential is the “Maiden Japan” E.P. & I consider “Killers” to be the least impressive of Maiden’s 80’s full-lengths. I guess the huge variety in opinions on what Maiden’s best & worst records are is the strongest representation of just how consistent & relevant they were during their prime.

Yeah, I think with Maiden, more than with any other metal band, it all comes down to what albums meant most to you when you got into them. Sure, I can appreciate that the later albums are technically better and better written, but they don't mean as much as Killers because that album captured a period of time, for me personally, that transcends mere grooves on records. That is one of the things I find endlessly fascinating about music - it's ability to capture a time and place in a listener's mind better than any photograph. I think that if we dismiss that and judge music solely on it's technical merits then we are much poorer as individuals for it.

I have both di'Anno albums rated highly, both 4/5 from when I did my original Maiden marathon, but I find myself not finding time for them for whatever reason. That'll have to change this week for a few revisits, is a shame how none of the tracks from the first two Maiden albums seemed to stick around in the popular eye. 

RIP 

Killers has always been a top 3 Maiden album for me. I vacillate between Killers, Powerslave and Piece of Mind. I was gutted when Paul left (or was sacked from) Maiden and, being young and stubborn, at first I refused to acknowledge Bruce as Maiden's singer, especially as he was previously with Samson who I thought absolutely sucked. Still, I did come around when I heard the Number of the Beast LP and obviously Bruce has been great, but I still longed for Paul to return to the band. His vocal delivery provided an aggressiveness that Bruce, for all his technical superiority, just couldn't replicate.

OK, I'm gonna go with:

1. Killers

2. Murders in the Rue Morgue

3. Phantom of the Opera

4. Another Life

5. Remember Tomorrow

6. Twilight Zone

7. Prowler

8. Purgatory

9. Wrathchild

10. Innocent Exile

I've been hammering these three early maiden classics all day and raising the horns to mark the passing of Paul di'Anno. RIP.

Here's my newly created Top Ten Metal Releases of 1993 list which clearly shows the impact that the now thriving doom/death subgenre was having on me at the time:

01. diSEMBOWELMENT - "Transcending Into The Peripheral"

02. My Dying Bride - "Turn Loose The Swans"

03. My Dying Bride - "The Thrash of Naked Limbs" E.P.

04. Anathema - "Serenades"

05. Death - "Individual Thought Patterns"

06. Dream Theater - "Live at the Marquee" E.P.

07. Morbid Angel - "Covenant"

08. Cynic - "Focus"

09. Burzum - "Det som engag var"

10. Gorguts - "The Erosion of Sanity"

https://metal.academy/lists/single/290

I think I need to spend a bit of quality time with "Transcending Into The Peripheral" because I have never thought that highly of it. Whether this is due to the fact I had no contemporary experience of it and only came to it long after the fact, or I just don't get it, I'm not sure. Either way it has been quite some time since I last listened to it, so it's probably long overdue a revisit.

Funnily enough, my #2 is something you reviewed very recently, Daniel:

1. Earth - Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version

2. Emperor / Enslaved - Emperor / Hordanes Land

3. Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon

4. Rippikoulu - Musta seremonia

5. Demilich - Nespithe

6. Death - Individual Thought Patterns

7. Beherit - Drawing Down the Moon

8. Gorguts - The Erosion of Sanity

9. Blasphemy - Gods of War

10. Sinister - Diabolical Summoning

The Flight of Sleipnir - Nature's Cadence (2024)

Released: 27th September

Nature's Cadence sees Coloradan blackened doomsters, The Flight of Sleipnir, continuing down the path they have been treading for some time now. This means another dose of well-written doom metal that is given a frosty edge by the black metal-style vocals of drummer David Csicsely and the occasional deployment of tremelo riffing. This has been tagged on RYM as Pagan Black Metal, but I don't really think their material deserves a black metal primary tagging, though, because there is a complete absence of blastbeats and the tremelo riffing is used only very sparingly, leaving Csicsely's grim shrieking vocals as the only major black metal influence and vocals alone do not a black metal band make.

Anyway, the album consists of five tracks and a relatively slight runtime by modern standards of 38 minutes, but each of those minutes is well-utilised and I never felt short-changed because there is a complete absence of filler here. It kicks off with the longest track, the almost twelve-minute "North" which is a neatly-written epic that takes a number of twists and turns with chunky doom riffing, gentle folky acoustic passages, ascerbic black metal interjections and soaring guitar soloing as it weaves it's tale of seafaring Viking warriors returning home from their raiding. "North" is a great example of how the band have honed their songwriting craft over the years, it's various diverse elements flowing organically one to another with an economy of expression that they struggled to master earlier in their career as, going back and comparing them, some of their early tracks were a little bloated compared to a track like this.

Next up is "Madness" which has a really catchy refrain and is destined to become one of those tracks I am forever finding myself singing out loud, long after I have put the record back in it's sleeve. "Madness" also heralds the introduction of steel guitar into the mix, with a couple of short country-style interludes that are reminiscent of the bluegrass and american folk that Austin Lunn of Panopticon has made a signature sound. Any black metal influence is entirely absent from this track and the two seemingly disparate styles of the quite catchy main refrain and the restrained country sound work surprisingly well together.

Side two begins with "Vingthor" (an alternative name for the god of thunder himself) whose energetic main riff incorporates a psychedelic tilt to it's downtuned doominess, seemingly at odds to the black metal shrieks of the vocals, although it works just fine and a merging of psychedelia and black metal never hurt Oranssi Pazuzu did it? "The Woodsman" is an acoustic folk track which sees Clayton Cushman's steel guitar from "Madness" make a return and it's a nice track in it's own right, even more so as it leads into the intro to closer, "Wanderer" which is interestingly reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's soundtrack work on Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, at least until the track erupts into a thundering and looming slab of blackened doom metal glory.

Now, Nature's Cadence is not really going to appeal to those who need to be constantly challenged by their metal listening fare, because this is a furrow The Flight of Sleipnir have been ploughing for some time, but no one else sounds quite like them and the introduction of elements of americana signals a slight evolution of sound for the band. Their version of doom metal is actually quite vibrant, with a rich, thick sound counterpointed exceedingly well by those black metal shrieks. For me, FoS are one of the better modern practitioners of doom metal and manage to have a signature sound and an ability to write memorable riffs and interesting lyrics in a genre that is overflowing with uninspiring copycats. This alone is reason to give them respect, but the high quality of all their work ensures that I will always be happy to lend them an ear and, in fact, I blind-ordered Nature's Cadence on vinyl because I was supremely confident that the band would deliver once more - and, luckily, I wasn't disappointed.

4/5

Dystopia - The Aftermath EP (1999)

The Aftermath exists in two formats, the original 19-minute four-track vinyl EP and the CD / streaming version with nine bonus tracks that runs for almost 45 minutes. The latter version contains the four tracks the band contributed to a 1995 split with Oakland crust punk band Skaven, the three tracks from their own 1997 Backstabber 7" EP, their track, "Diary of a Battered Child", from a split single with L.A. psychedelic crew, Suffering Luna and a one-minute track called "Cosmetic Plague", which is from a 1996 VA comp ironically called Whispers!. This review is for the extended version.

Dystopia are one pissed-off band, with a whole armoury of axes to grind, be it corporate greed, prejudice, injustice or self-loathing, if you name it then Dystopia have got a beef with it. Of course this makes for some gloriously feral-sounding sludge that leans heavily into the hardcore / crust vibe with ominous, downtuned riffing and some gloriously pounding and relentless drumwork from the superb Dino Sommese who has got to be one of the best punk drummers going.

The first four tracks which constitute the original EP are the best, especially from a metalhead's point-of-view, as these are not only the best-produced tracks, but also the most metal-sounding, with huge, downtuned riffs and thundering drumwork counterpointing the seething, furious vocal delivery for a nineteen-minute onslaught of true sludge metal violence. Dystopia make no concession to the stoner element that often creeps into sludge metal, this is pure, undiluted vitriol and venom and isn't meant to be heard as anything other than an attack on those with who the band have taken issue, so there's no druggy-like instrumental breaks to provide any relief from this aural warfare. This is the sound of a band who really mean it.

The bonus tracks, which were all released earlier than the first four, lean even more into the punk side of sludge metal. They are generally shorter, less well-produced, more simply structured and some of the lyrical content is a bit less sophisticated. Three or four of these bonus tracks feature samples as intros, which is often a feature of protest music, but of which I am not a fan and which bring nothing much to the table here either. I love me some punk, so I found these bonuses to be entertaining enough, but they may not appeal as much to someone not as enamoured of hardcore or crust as myself. There is still a metallic element to all but the final track, but it is less pronouced than that of the original four tracks and they are without a doubt the main draw for most listeners, certainly from Metal Academy anyway.

As such, I look upon this as a high quality EP of true sludge metal, as it was originally conceived, that contains a fair set of bonus tracks that chart the evolution of the band from a hardcore / crust origin to an accomplished crossover metal act.

4/5

I can't see you ending up like that Xephyr. I'm not presuming to know the inner you, but I recognise traits you display that I identify with and I think music discovery is too pivotal a part of who you are for it to just become a comfort blanket.

Sure, we all like to have those albums we know we can fall back on. Whenever I find myself in a bad place, there are certain records that can provide a familiar and emotionally calming oasis in a seeming desert of shit. But, even now in my sixties I still get a buzz from hearing something new (to me) that hits the spot and with metal now being more diverse than ever why would I want to abandon it when it has such an ability to surprise and delight? Good surprises get ever rarer at this age, so I'll be damned if I'll turn my back on such a good source.

Anathema - Eternity (1996)

I have decided to fill the gaps in my ratings for the releases in the top 100 charts of my four clans, leading me today to take on Anathema's 1996 album Eternity. Now, seemingly at odds with the rest of the metal world, I have never really got on board the Anathema train, being a little bemused at the exalted status they seem to hold in the metal community. This, of course, may be down to the fact that I was out of the metal loop during their earlier days, so I have only ever viewed their metal phase from a retrospective viewpoint, thus being unaware of the contemporary impact of their music and being personally uninvested in their work, a phenomena whose effect is a big influence on what does and does not resonate with us.

The first thing that baffles me about Eternity is it's doom metal tag. I can't hear a whole lot of what I understand as doom metal here, but I do think it leans towards gothic metal. The bass sound in particular comes straight from The Sisters of Mercy, the jangling nature of a lot of the guitar work owes much to The Mission or the early sound of The Cult's Billy Duffy and "Cries on the Wind" even sees vocalist Vincent Cavanagh aping Aaron Stainthorpe's gothic delivery. So I would tag this as gothic rather than doom metal, although that in itself doesn't tell the whole story of Eternity as it also has a very progressive feel and enters into dalliances with alternative metal.

Most of the reviews I have read of the album refer to it as a transitionary album for the band and I get that, because it feels like an album by a band who have found the constraints of the metal sphere too restrictive to allow them to express the emotions and ideas that they wish to convey and who are testing the restraints that bind them. Initially I was underwhelmed by Eternity and felt it lacked bite, but having lived with it for three or four days now and having got underneath it's bodywork, allowing my preconceptions to fall away, it has revealed itself to be quite the tour de force, albeit with a major caveat that I will get to shortly. The songwriting is excellent and is filled with melodious hooks and pensive, reflectively atmospheric moments. The instrumentation is high calibre with a couple of impressive solos that sound restrained and yet still soar majestically over the on point rhythm work in a style not entirely dissimilar to that of Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour. In fact The Wall-era Pink Floyd crept unbidden into my mind on more than one occasion as brief snippets seemed to be eerily similar to parts of Floyd's 1979 concept album meisterwork, Eternity Pt.2 bearing a particular point of reference.

And so to that caveat I mentioned which is a major stumbling block to me dishing out a top tier rating. The issue that ultimately left me feeling slightly disappointed is the vocal performance of Vincent Cavanagh, which I don't think is sufficiently proficient to express the emotional heft that the material required, robbing it of a lot of it's poignancy as a result. Vincent seems to be struggling at times and is helped out more than once by backing vocals that cover up for some of his shortcomings, but is still a little jarring in places which led to me being snapped out of the spell that the music had been weaving. With a top-drawer vocalist then I would have had no problem dishing out a 4.5 or 5 star rating, because songwriting and instrumental performance-wise this is an album that worms it's way into even my jaded and cynical psyche, providing a melancholic, yet uplifting, sensation that has been artfully crafted, but sadly left bereft by one important aspect falling short. Maybe a further passage of time will see me warming to the vocals, but for now to me this is a classic that got away.

4/5

I would say that anyone who listens to Coldplay and Red Hot Chilli Peppers has no right to pass judgement on anyone else's musical tastes, Ben!

Yeah, I should have said "amongst fans nerdy enough to post about music on an internet site" rather than the average man in the street. From my own experience, most of my real life "friends" still listen to the same shit they were listening to back in the eighties. To them Nirvana and Oasis are pushing them out of their comfort zone! Either that or they just latch onto whatever overhyped shit headlined at Glastonbury that year along with the rest of the fucking sheep. If I played them 95% of the stuff I listen to nowadays I swear most of them would freak out, bury their heads in a pillow and hum Bob Dylan songs to themselves whilst trying not to cry.

Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas - Mariner (2016)

I have no idea who Juie Christmas is, or what her work outside of this collaboration may sound like, but one thing is for sure, she has certainly brought an additional dimension to CoL's sound, without nudging it too far from what we have come to expect from the swedish atmo-sludge crew. I went into Mariner expecting it to be Cult of Luna with ethereal female vocals, presuming Julie Christmas to have come from a darkwave or gothic background similar to Chelsea Wolfe, but that isn't what she brings to the table at all. In fact, there is a quite a variation in her vocal styles, ranging from a quite twee-sounding, young girl-like voice to a snarling, sharp-edged sludgy shriek. I must admit that it is the more aggressive latter style which I found most appealing, such as she uses on "The Wreck of S.S. Needle" alongside a clean style that reminded me of SubRosa's Rebecca Vernon. I can see that Julie's vocals may be divisive among CoL fans and I feel that it may take me a few more listens to be completely at home with them myself, but she does help to revitalise a band that was getting maybe a little too comfortable in it's own skin.

Of course, this being Cult of Luna, the instrumentation is impeccable and the songs are multi-textured affairs, but they feel less reliant on the build-and-release trope that has become the main feature of atmospheric sludge in general and CoL in particular over the years. I think this may be down to the flexibility of Julie Christmas's vocals which bring wider textural variety to the vocal aspect of Mariner's sound and makes it less reliant on the building of instrumental tension and the subsequent payoff of it's release that the genre has stereotypically come to rely on. This fundamental aspect of Cult of Luna's sound isn't completely absent of course and is very much still in evidence in a song like "Approaching Transition" which, tellingly, Julie is less involved in and as such sounds more like the CoL we are all used to.

Whilst the album as a whole is a very solid and interesting affair, for me it is at it's best when JC is given free rein and utilises all the vocal tricks in her toolbox, with the closer "Cygnus" and the afrementioned, "The Wreck of S.S. Needle", being the two standouts as her vocals weave in and around the band's searing and soaring instrumentation in a quite sublime dance of musical dexterity and creativity. The songwriting on these two tracks is quite exceptional and feels extremely natural, as if the sounds these two entities have ended up producing are the only feasible outcome of their inevitable collaboration.

I must admit, before listening to Mariner, I thought that Cult of Luna no longer really had the ability to surprise me. Entertain and delight me, for sure, but to make me do a double-take and really sit up and take notice of a newly-heard release, no those days were gone. I was wrong for sure and I can't really explain why it has taken me so long to get around to checking this collaboration out, other than I already thought I knew what to expect. Well bigger fool me, because this is not at all that thing, but rather an invigorating and special slab of atmospheric sludge that stands up to scrutiny against all but the absolute best that the genre has to offer. Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks after all.

4.5/5

Pagan Altar - Mythical & Magical (2006)

I am fairly familiar with Pagan Altar's earlier material, specifically the debut which dates from 1982, their Time Lord EP which dates from '78/'79 and also their 2004 album Lords of Hypocrisy. The first two are interesting early examples of the metamorphisis from heavy metal to traditional doom metal that was beginning to take place in the late seventies and early eighties, similar to Bedemon/Pentagram or Witchfinder General material from the same era. I wasn't so much taken with the later album however and found it quite lacklustre and disappointing.

So, my first impressions of 2006's Mythical & Magical are far more positive, I must say. It is a much more interesting release with it's quite wide range of influences, whilst still sounding consistent. The biggest issue for a lot of fans is likely to be Terry Jones' nasal and fairly high-pitched vocal delivery which may not be to everyone's taste, but if you are OK with King Diamond and Cirith Ungol you should be fine. Talking of Cirith Ungol, there are certainly elements employed by the Californian epic metallers to be found here on Mythical & Magical, albeit a little more restrained. Just to be clear though, there is very little to no doom metal present on M&M, other than in the very loosest sense. This is predominantly (epic) trad metal with plenty of seventies hard rock influence. There is even some folk-prog featured with the enjoyable, The Crowman, which wouldn't sound at all out of place on Jethro Tull's fantastic 1977 Songs from the Wood album. Make no mistake though, this is principally a traditional heavy metal album and Pagan Altar's emergence during the early NWOBHM is apparent both in the songwriting and the production of M&M with it's relatively raw and reedy sound.

For me the album is at it's strongest when they go all-in on the more epic side of things and allow Alan Jones to indulge his soaring solos, such as the Comfortably Numb-esque closing solo to The Sorcerer. I would suggest it is Alan's guitar work that raises this album to whatever heights it occupies as it is his riffing and soloing that completely dominates the album's standout moments.

I find it fascinating that Terry and Alan are father and son. I don't know of any other band with such a relationship - I really can't imagine being in a band with my old man and I certainly can't imagine it would have lasted long if I was!

4/5

I haven't checked it out yet, Xephyr. The reason being that, as you say, I'm a massive fan and I blind-ordered the vinyl from Bandcamp and I'm waiting until it comes so I can get the whole vinyl experience, fresh out of the box, so to speak. I am looking forward to it immensely, though.

Edguy - Mandrake (2001)

Not yet feeling I have taken suffcient punishment, I took my second plunge into the world of EUPM this week. Much like with the Hammerfall album, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Edguy, at least on the evidence of this album, are one of the more palatable bands from the genre for me. They don't appear to go all-in on the cheesier aspects of power metal, not smothering everything in layers of keyboards and even their choral harmonising doesn't irritate as badly as most of their contemporaries. The singer, Tobias Sammet (also of Avantasia) is a more than passable Bruce Dickinson impersonator so, again, doesn't irritate me anything like as much as the majority of power metal vocalists. The riffing and soloing are decent, but I wouldn't put them on the same level as the Hammerfall album from earlier in the week, but they score much better on the vocal front. What I would give for an album with Hammerfall's instrumentation and Edguy's vocals!

The real pearls within the oyster's body are the two consecutive tracks, "Nailed to the Wheel" and The "Pharaoh". The former is a thrashy, Iced Earth-like workout that bears more relation to power metal of the US variety than the European and the latter is a "Stargazer" / "Gates of Babylon"-influenced epic, which does feature some synths, but they are only used to imbue the track with a tasteful eastern flavour which isn't in any way overpowering. If the rest of the album exhibited the quality of these two tracks, then I would have no trouble awarding a four-star rating. But, of course, this is power metal and at over an hour this is way too long and a number of the tracks are fairly forgettable and the ballad, Wash Away the Poison, is horrible, so a lower score is inevitable. Still, Mandrake left me open to exploring Edguy further and I may well return to this at some point in the future, with "Nailed to the Wheel" most likely ending up on one of my playlists.

3.5/5

Hammerfall - Renegade (2000)

OK, so I am really living outside my comfort zone this week, today seeing me taking a rare excursion into european power metal territory, which almost invariably ends badly! I don't recall ever having listened to Hammerfall before and I didn't go into this exploration of the Swedes' third album with much optimism, but I actually found myself enjoying this a fair bit. Firstly, the instrumentation is pretty damn good, with some decent Priest / Maiden-esque riffing and nice soloing that doesn't feel overwhelmingly self-indulgent. The drumming and basswork are also very solid, including an Overkill-like intro to the penultimate track, the instrumental "Raise the Hammer", which may or may not be a tribute to "Philthy" Phil Taylor who Lemmy used to refer to as "The Hammer".

Of course my real bugbear with the european variant of power metal is still in evidence, that being the vocals. Both the histrionic lead vocals and the multi-layered harmonised choruses never fail to get my back up. Even though both are present here on Renegade, they are not so egregious that they have me gagging with an involuntary reflux reaction like they would normally. In fact, I would have to say that for euro power metal the vocals are decidedly understated (relatively-speaking, obviously), which works heavily in the album's favour as far as I am concerned. The upshot of all this is that Hammerfall have piqued my curiosity somewhat and have earned a degree of respect which may or may not see me delving further into their back catalogue. Renegade represents the acceptable face of european power metal in Sonny-World!

A somewhat surprising 3.5/5

Good luck, Andi. Hope it all goes well.

Converge - Jane Doe (2001)

No, believe it or not, I hadn't listened to this before today, even though I am well aware how critically-acclaimed it is. Despite metalcore not being one of my "core" genres, I have found Converge to be one of the more palatable bands in the genre, so I can't really say why it has taken me so long to get round to their highest-rated album, sheer bloody mindedness I suppose! Well, I can certainly hear why it is so highly acclaimed as I found it to be quite a striking listen. There is a nice blend of short, aggressive tracks and more expansive, sludge-influenced workouts. The greater depth to the guitar tone and the slower tempo of a couple of tracks, most notably Hell To Pay and Phoenix in Flight, unsurprisingly appeal to my Fallen-obsessed sensibilities more than most metalcore albums do. Then, the absolute nirvana of what is already a singularly great Revolution release, the epic closing title track and it's dabbling with atmospheric sludge renders this so far above the metalcore crowd that it inhabits a different plane of existence. Shit, at this rate I'm going to be swapping one of my clans for The Revolution. (Not really, Andi, before you say anything!) Anyway, credit where credit is due, this is a fantastic metal release with the ability to invigorate even an old curmudgeon like me.

4.5/5

Hi again Ben. Please add Belfast sludge / doom crew War Iron. Thanks muchly.

I like these ideas and will investigate adding them in the next batch of updates. I'm strapped for cash at the moment while the cost of living / interest rates are so high in Australia, so I'm afraid it won't happen quickly.

Just a couple of ideas for the "back burner". The economic situation is a real downer for so many people at the moment, isn't it. Hopefully things may start to turn around as we get further removed from Coronavirus, etc.

Hi Sonny. I experienced something similar with one of my lists a while back, but I don't know what the cause is. I plan to bring all the site's platforms up to the latest versions in the coming months and hope that might stop the issues. If not, I'll get my developer to look into it. I know it's a pain, but lists with under 200 entries seem to be much more stable than those above that mark.

One day I plan to redesign the lists altogether to make it easier to add / remove entries from long lists while still maintaining the order.

No problem, Ben. It's not a big issue, but I thought I would let you know anyway.

Hold the presses!! A new Grand Magus is due on October 18th, their first for five long years. Vinyl pre-order already gone in!

There's a couple of preview tracks up on YouTube, Spotify and Bandcamp:

I wonder if it would be possible, at some point in the future, to implement a "Collection" button on a release, which would enable us to add it to a record of our own personal record collections. I have been updating my collection on Discogs and RYM, at least for The Fallen initially, but I would really like to see it here on Metal Academy, because I think it is aesthetically much more pleasing. For now I have been making a personal list of my Fallen-related physical releases, but this is quite time-consuming and I encountered an issue with the list when I got over 350 entries which saw many of the entries disappear and which has seen me having to split it into two halves.

Anyway, here's a link to the first part of my Fallen Collection list for anyone who is interested to see what a sad geek of a record collector I am:

https://metal.academy/lists/single/286

Also, how about a similar ability to tag something onto a "watchlist" or, more accurately, a "listen-to list" so that we can tag things that may pique our interest but we haven't time to check out just at that moment. I would much rather keep track of both of these things here than on RYM.

I wonder if it would be possible, at some point in the future, to implement a "Collection" button on a release, which would enable us to add it to a record of our own personal record collections. I have been updating my collection on Discogs and RYM, at least for The Fallen initially, but I would really like to see it here on Metal Academy, because I think it is aesthetically much more pleasing. For now I have been making a personal list of my Fallen-related physical releases, but this is quite time-consuming and I encountered an issue with the list when I got over 350 entries which saw many of the entries disappear and which has seen me having to split it into two halves.

Anyway, here's a link to the first part of my Fallen Collection list for anyone who is interested to see what a sad geek of a record collector I am:

https://metal.academy/lists/single/286

Korpiklaani - Spirit of the Forest (2003)

Now, I am not the biggest fan of most folk metal, but I don't have any particular ideoligical opposition to it, it is just that it is so badly done, so often and usually comes off as a bit goofy and corny. But, that said, even a notorious miserablist like myself occasionally needs to hear something uplifting and life-affirming and, when done well, folk metal can provide that for me, particular with it's jaunty naturistic celebrations and  it's use of folk instrumentation, of which I am a big fan. Korpiklaani seem like just one of a few of those bands who strike the right balance for me. I think it is because they take both the folk and metal aspects of their sound seriously and come off as sounding more authentic than a lot of bands within the genre, who often feel too gimmicky. So when I want to hear something with a bit more of a positive, celebratory atmosphere and feel that some good folk metal may do the trick, then I don't usually look far beyond Korpiklaani or Finntroll. Maybe it's something hiding in those finnish forests that influences those two band's take on a genre that can go horribly wrong and enables them to transcend the embarrassing corniness that too often accompanies it.

This was actually Korpiklaani's debut and is a strong one at that, especially for a genre to which I am largely indifferent and is one of only a handful of folk metal albums I can stomach. The songs are mostly shortish affairs and the album varies it's tempo a fair bit, so it never feels too "samey" and if a particular track doesn't strike your fancy then it isn't long before something else takes it's place. It's mostly a jaunty, jigging affair, that makes you think of summer nights under a starry sky, drinking and engaging in generally raucous merry-making around the leaping flames of a camp bonfire with good friends. I have spent quite a few nights in my younger days in just such a way and maybe it's success for me personally is in evoking nostalgic visions of good times.

3.5/5

Tim Lambesis really nails the harsh aggressiveness without resorting to annoyingly excessive shoutiness, his clean vocals are also very good. T

It's a pity that he attempted to hire an undercover police officer to murder his wife a decade ago but I guess nobody's perfect.

Wow, I did not know that. That is reprehensible. What a c@#t. I hope he did time for it.

A new Oranssi Pazuzu album, called Muuntautuja, is due on Oct 11th. There are a couple of preview tracks available now. If these are anything to go by, the band are getting even more trippy in a kind of bad-trip, dystopian, industrial, Neuromancer kind of way.

The better of the two new tracks is called Valotus (needs age verification).

Alternatively, here is the Bandcamp page link:

https://oranssipazuzu.bandcamp.com/album/muuntautuja