Monday, December 31, 2007

Review of Denial Fiend's They Rise

Denial Fiend are a new band featuring Kam Lee (Massacre, ex-Death, Shadows with Knives), Curtis Beeson (Nasty Savage, ex-Lowbrow, ex-Fester), Terry Butler (Massacre, ex-Death, Six Feet Under, Shadows with Knives), and Sam Williams (Shadows with Knives, Down by Law, Pseudo Heroes). The music on their debut "They Rise" can be described as "Horror Metal." The music is heavily influenced by death metal, thrash, and horror punk. Lyrically influenced by old school horror films. Not the shitty Nu-gore Blockbuster movies. "They Rise" has a very original sound. A breath of fresh air from all the trendy -core bands. Even though Denial Fiend's influences consists of mainly old school metal and horror punk bands, they are NOT a fucking retro-metal band who tries to sound like they came out in 1985. No modern trends here!

"They Rise" features some of Kam Lee's best vocal performances to date. He sounds evil as fuck and can sound very demonic at times. After a huge absence from the metal scene, he proves that he still has it. Kam Lee is hands down the greatest death metal vocalist ever. Lots of great riffs can be found here. Sam Williams is a riff master and his solos are fucking great. This album is just perfect. Not a single weak song can be found on it. Interesting fact is the track entitled "L.O.D." is a re-worked version of "Legions of Doom" from Death's 1983 "Death By Metal" demo back when they went by the name of Mantas. The very first death metal recording. "They Rise" is the album of 2007 as far as I'm concerned. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that "They Rise" is one of the greatest metal albums of all time.

OVERALL RATING: 10+/10

Written by Blaspherion

Review of Susperia's Cut From Stone

My life turned for the better today. I was looking for a hero. WE NEED SOME HELP. Today I found it....

Susperia are the saviours of TRUE HEAVY METAL.

With the Cut From Stone album, pure heavy metal returns. They are not death metal, they are not thrash metal, they are not power metal, they are PURE HEAVY METAL done properly and correctly. They are angry, fun, technical, creative, well rehearsed, masculine, and badass. I could rant all day about it, but I will just get to the details:

Guitars: In a word: Incredible. They use thick, warm, HEAVY fucking tones. They have written an in depth and dynamic combination of classic metal grooves, high speed thrashing, melodic spiraling two part guitar leads, occasional acoustics, brutal stomping mosh breaks, and even some atmospheric interludes. Top notch, every trick in the book is here. The best part: no modern trends AT ALL.

Drums: It's Tjodalv on drums. Need I say more? He is a complete badass. He does the most elegant fillwork and transitions. His effortless double bass rolls are perfectly done every time. He uses grind and blast beats in a subtle manner to add climactic ends to phrases. I can only imagine by what he has done with this album that there CAN'T be anything more badass to do on drums. This is the best drum performance in heavy metal I can imagine. Brilliant.

Vocals: This vocalist has finally done it. The first album from Susuperia sounded like they didn't know if they wanted to play black metal, thrash, death, or what. It was sort of a mixture of it all, especially the vocals. Honestly, it wasn't that great. However, over the last couple of Susperia albums, this singer has uncovered from within himself something rare and precious: a masculine and brutal singing voice that he can tame into something beautiful. He is now officially my vote for the best new singer in heavy metal. He should be the inspiration for youthful new fans of metal and future vocalists. If the whole world learned from this singer, the modern trends of little bitch sounds would fade away. He holds true to the traditions of the original metal bands, but adds a certain aggression and power that nobody(except maybe Chuck Billy) has today.

Susperia's new album is proof that mallcore and post-hardcore are NOT true heavy metal. If you listen to them in a side by side comparison, Cut From Stone beats EVERYTHING'S ass brutally. This album is the one I have been waiting for: my weapon against the fakeness of the new rise of false metal.

This fucking album is my vote for the best album of 2007. It's better than anything that has come out from any band in years. If you are a fan of heavy metal, BUY THIS ALBUM and then send Susperia an additional 20 dollar tip. You will be doing your part to save heavy metal from being further corrupted by trends and weakness. Consider yourself lucky that the world you live in has such a badass experience as listening to this album within your short and pathetic life.

Score: this album is unscorable, it is priceless and gets far beyond a 10/10, it should only be printed on platinum records and cost more than the average home to get a copy



Written by Fat Jenk

Review of My Dying Bride's A Line Of Deathless Kings

"What if love's intolerable pain never leaves us. Do we dash our bleeding hearts on the rocks of loneliness? And cry to the lords above, who turn away in haste?"

My Dying Bride, IMHO, is the quintessential doom band. I love Candlemass, oldschool Paradise Lost, Mourning Beloveth, November's Doom, Shape of Despair, Sahg, hell even Eyehategod. If it is considered doom by anyone who knows half what the fuck they are talking about, I probably own it.

From their beginnings, My Dying Bride with each album changed from typical death metal into a gothic doom style very unusual and refreshing. By the time "Like Gods Of The Sun" was released, there weren't even any more death vocals, yet the evil and depression remained without being trendy or gay.

They almost lost me with the release of the album "34.788%....complete" because it strayed so far from their textbook formula, not to mention it was fairly weak and almost sounded like coffee shop goth through half of the album.

However, they totally shot right back to the top 10 of all metal bands IMO with the next album, "Light at the end of the world". At that point, they reinvented themselves into something far more evil and brutal than ever before. Since then, they have progressively gotten more dark and sinister while maintaining the good melodic parts.

Their last album "Songs Of Darkness, Words Of Light" is, in my opinion, the best doom album ever created, and by a fucking landslide. That album from start to finish is completely fucking lethargic, brutal, evil, heavy, hang yourself DOOOOOM!

SOOOOO....given My Dying Bride's history of changing their style completely from one album to the next, I never know what to expect. Within about 10 minutes I knew that this new album was going in a direction I would completely agree with. Heaviness? check. Depression? check. Melody? check. Brutality? check. Evil? check. Beauty? check. Everything MDB does that is worth listening to is on this album, but it has a different songwriting direction with less of an epic nature.

Vocals: This time Aaron nailed it 100%. The singing parts in the past I loved immensely, but he sometimes got so emotional (or tried to sound it) that he missed notes completely. This time however, he managed to keep the sad sounding voice while holding the pitch PERFECTLY and with much better range than in past efforts. Hell, he even overdubbed some harmony which he had not done in the past, and it sounds amazing. The brutal parts are fantastic, you can clearly understand the words, hear the hatred in his voice, with none of the typical death metal "reee reee" sound. A+ vocal performance.

Guitars: These guys are brilliant, as usual. Excellent quality tone, minor scale harmonies throughout. The heaviest parts are very concise and tight. Quite a bit more mid tempo brutal shit this time. A+

Precussion: Before you can play any instrument fast, you should know EVERYTHING by playing slow. This guy adds texture, dimension, and flavor to even the slowest parts of the songs. He is quite able to keep them shredding when it comes time to pick up the pace quite a bit, too. This guy is one of the coolest and most creative drummers in all of heavy metal, and lucky for him they don't want to go as fast as Origin or Hate Eternal. A

Songwriting: The core of this effort is very well done. However I felt this album started a little too abruptly for a band capable of extreme dynamics. I was almost beginning to think this album was a little rushed, but it seems they spent a majority of the time on the middle of songs. However, in comparison to their previous efforts where the entirety of the albums were epic and ran together, this album feels like a bunch of individual songs, and thus is not up to the expectations I have for this band. B+

Themes/Lyrics: Aaron is a completely badass lyricist and poet. I hate poetry and lyrics for 99% of bands are cookie cutter renditions of what their favorite bands talk about. I have to say My Dying Bride is as authentic and original as you can get, and this album is a perfect display of that. A+

Final Score: 9/10 - close to perfect, but the last album by this band has a HUGE shadow. Still, this is in contention with the new Slayer and the new Enslaved for album of the year.

Written by Fat Jenk

Review of Mayhem's Ordo Ad Chao

Ok, first off....this is not a return to the Dom Sathanas album, even though Attila is back on vocals. Yes, i miss the old Mayhem too....i miss the black metal of old where the really good riffs were created and then repeated throughout the song without sounding like a Darkthrone clone (i.e. Buried by Time and Dust). My favorite Mayhem albums are the Dom Sathanas (of course) and the Wolf's Lair ep, and i dont think we will ever hear a return to those days and those sounds......but this new piece of work by Mayhem still beats the last two studio records by far...... The mix is dark and muddy and it makes the music seem very genuine, not contrived like so much of todays metal. This is an album one needs to take a little time to get into, which reminds me of the old days. There is lots of chaos and broken song structure and plenty of heavy, blasting shit here to satisfy even me. But the beauty of this album lays in the melodies that seem to be hidden beneath the songs. This is best revealed in the song 'Illuminate Illiminate' where it takes the the entire track to reveal the final melodies at the end. Nothing else out there sounds like this....it doesnt even sound like Mayhem! There is also lots of space in the songs, which again is a far cry from the glory days of this band. But it works well. The vocals are different too, you can tell its Attila, but he has not remained the same. It seems that he has done his best to sing with the style of music; chaotic and depressed....... I personally am very pleased that these guys did not make some over-polished, trendy 'metal' album. So many bands have decided to become safe and clean in order to sell more records to children. The drums in this music have an organic, dirty feel that i like very much.....again, it takes a while to start to hear everything. I actually read in an interview with Hellhammer that he only triggered his kicks, as to have the natural drum sound you get from using mics. I get sick of triggered drums, i want to hear a real insturment, not a fucking computer interpretation. The guitars are smooth and evil sounding as well, not all crunchy like so much modern, boring metal. Leave the metalcore crap to the kids at the mall, this cd is for those with experience. Gone are the days of controversy in Mayhem, but they are replaced by some evil sounding shit played by musicians who know how to play their fucking instruments. Plenty of chaos with some spaces in between to allow a quick breath before being suffocated again....this is not for trendy shitheads.... This is the real shit played by a band that has been doing it for over 20 years, though its just not really black metal anymore.... The cover art is kinda cool too, but the layout inside kinda sucks, just kinda boring. This cd kicks butt over A Grand Declaration and is also much better than Chimara, ....so pretend you are true and all that shit and go cut youself or something, whatever.

Written by L.Sxuperion

Review of Kreator's Pleasure to Kill

Pleausre to Kill is one of those albums that has stood the test of time as a stone cold classic. Released in 1986 (a great year for metal Reign in Blood, Master of Puppets, Somewhere in Time and many more classic albums were released that year.) Pleasure to Kill really helped put Kreator on the map due to the speed and intensity of the album. In fact I've heard people call this the European Reign in Blood which is quite an compliment.

The album starts off with the majestic opening track Choir of the Damned which to me is a really awesome track. The majestic track soon changes into the brutal Ripping Corpse. Ripping Corpse is like a nice kick in the face for the listner because you don't expect something that brutal and fast to come after such a slow opening track. The title track has some great drumming in it and it's definatly one the albums highlights. Riot of Violence to me is the albums best song. It's well crafted and it is constantly changing tempo. It boasts the best guitar work and, the drums are right in there backing up the guitar by keeping the beat. From here on the album is just classic thrash metal but, some of the better songs would have to be Command of the Blade and The Pestilence.

Pleasure to Kill is probably Kreators best album and if not one of their best. I don't think any of the other Kreator matches the power that Pleasure to Kill has and I don't think they ever will. Classic German thrash album and a must own if you a fan of heavy metal.



Best songs: All!!



5 out of 5 stars!

Written by +extreme_metalhead+

Review of In Ruin's The Curse Of Decay

Many of you old-schoolers probably remember this band from a decade ago. They released a short album on Metal Blade Records called Four Seasons Of Grey. I consider a classic, primarily because it was creative and different. At that time everyone in the scene was going into either the Seattle Alternative bullshit or into the rapcore gayness. In Ruins brought some serious dark and intelligent metal to the table, which was a relief. Sadly, I didn't hear about them for several years after that album, and they got dropped from Metal Blade.

I recently found their band's pages again, and was very happy to see that they didn't give up. It's been a long ass time, and their first album has been discontinued long ago. The good news: they have a new album and it is coming out soon!!! I managed to get a promotional copy, and let me tell you it is awesome.

The vocalist is a great example of mid-ranged brutal growls/screams, yet he maintains diction and decipherability. There is never any clean singing, which alot of bands do these days. As a matter of fact, everyone trying to sing clean when they suck at singing ruins alot of great bands. This guy sticks to the angry stuff, and it fits perfectly.

The guitars are classic heavy metal/thrash galloping rythems mostly, which nobody does correctly anymore. These type of rythems have been butchered by the metalcore pussies of today by simplifying them and taking out the minor scales. In Ruins guitars are textbook DARK and EERIE which is something that is lacking on a large scale in modern metal. They also use some well placed 2 part guitar harmonies, and keep the lead guitar styled similar to doom metal leads. This combined with their rythem style is absolutely brutal and tasteful at the same time. They even have some dismal acoustic passages in several songs.

Keyboards are present, but they take a page from Nocturnus and use the keyboards for atmosphere rather than as the lead instrument. Too many bands have started using irritating lead keyboards, and often times choose sounds for the keys that are either reminiscent of video games or sound like a poorly done Sci-Fi movie theme. The keyboards on this album accent the darker points while maintaining their distant background and NEVER take away from the guitars.

Drumming is very good, and is clearly performed by a team player. Too many drummers today insist of filling every trasition with sporadic drum rolls and wanky tricks. This drummer is a technician, and adds to the immersiveness of the music by keeping a low profile. Here you will find perfectly timed double bass work throughout the album, as well as some slower doom style drums and even some heavy grooves. If you are only interested in extreme blasts and high speed, this is drummer is not for you.

Altogether, this is the greates thing I have heard in a VERY long time. However, there is one big problem with the album: it has been finished for almost 2 years and has yet to be released. Hopefully it will be available before the year is over, and I HIGHLY recommend any metal fand pick it up. It is brilliant. If you don't have Four Seasons Of Grey, go hit Ebay or Amazon or some oldschool store and find it.

Also, check out their myspace profile which has some short samples:
http://www.myspace.com/inruins


Written by Fat Jenk

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Review of Unleashed's Midvinterblot

I am thinking that I have picked one hell of a CD to do my first ever review. I must first start off by saying if your are a true fan to Death Metal that Unleashed’s - Midvinterblot is a must have to your collection. From the opening track “Blood Of Lies” all the way through to the last of 15 tracks “Valhalla Awaits” , This is in your face. Most the time I get a little worried when a band has more then 8-10 tracks but I am very impressed here. Every song takes on its own little adventure of creativity. For instance track 3 “We Must Join With Him” Brings my mind to a medieval place in time where things were much different then today, where it was much better to Join with evil instead of dying for the good of nothing. Having a picture of a line of Viking Warriors getting ready to march in to a battle of pure destruction of the weak. I really like the very strong Vocals from Johnny Hedlund , He has a classic Death Metal voice, but yet you can still really understand what he is singing without having to read the lyrics. To me his voice is like a cross between the late great Chuck Schuldiner and John Tardy from Obituary. The guitars are just amazing. I can fell that they have put a lot into this, from the dual almost shredding to the melodic guitar riffs. There are no weak spots on this cd. Really tough for me to pick one track to define this Masterpiece. But if I really had to pick a few tracks I would go with “We Must Join With Him”, “Psycho Killer” and “I Have Sworn Allegiance”. I have not heard everything before from Unleashed but this Cd is now in my top 20 Death Metal releases of all time. I heard lot of really amazing CDS in 2006 and now this Midvinterblot is got to be one of the best, Defiantly Top 5. So if you haven’t picked this up yet you better get your ass out there and get it done. You will not be disappointed!
On the so called scale of 1- 10 I give this an 11.

1. Blood Of Lies
2. This Is Our World Now
3. We Must Join With Him
4. Midvinterblot
5. In Victory Or Defeat
6. Triumph Of Genocide
7. The Avenger
8. Salvation For Mankind
9. Psycho Killer
10. The Witch
11. I Have Sworn Allegiance
12. Age Of The Warrior
13. New Dawn Rising
14. Loyalty And Pride
15. Valhalla Awaits

Writen By Wreck