Degradation – Juggernaut Review
Degradation // Juggernaut
Rating: 2.5/5.0 — Sandbagged!
Label: Self-released
Websites: www.degradationband.com/
Release Dates: Out now!
So here’s my first official review of 2012 and Steel Druhm must report that the retro-thrash wave has spilled over into another year. Whatever your opinion of such spillage may be, like every trend, some of that deluge is good, some is really bad, the majority floats in the middle. With their debut full length, Chicago toughs Degradation find themselves somewhere in that big middle, drifting toward the good side of the river but not quite able to reach the shore. Enough with the nautical metaphors. This is steady but mostly unexceptional thrash like they used to make in the second and the dreaded third wave (Gothic Slam, anybody?) of the original thrash explosion. Scattered across this fairly short, fly by album are traces of Slayer, Metallica, Testament and even mega-obscure Faith or Fear. It’s a Bay Area thrash revival with the odd piece of the germanic school sprinkled in for flavor (think old Deathrow). Despite the energy and enthusiasm the band brings to the material, I was never able to fully buy into Juggernaut and after repeated listens, some of the tracks just go by without registering in my thrash receptacle (located just under the spleen). I’m not sure if its thrash fatigue or what but this album just doesn’t resonate, though there are some quality moments. Continue reading
Now this was a tough album to review. I had a devil of a time trying to get through the music and honestly couldn’t even figure out what genre, sub-genre or sub-sub-genre these Chicago progressive metallers belonged in. You see, The Living Fields are so all over the place with their sound on their sophomore release Running Out of Daylight, they utterly defy conventional pigeonholing. At various times during the album’s playtime, they touch on ambient, darkwave, post rock, black metal, death metal, doom metal, folk and power metal. Yes, they cover their bases fully. In some ways these chaps could be called a more linear and rational version of Therion. They have all the same orchestration, pomp and variety and sport multiple vocalists of varying styles. However, they lack Therion‘s lunatic charm, off the rails approach and overall entertainment factor. Although far more restrained in their songwriting, their compositions have a cold feeling and lack of cohesion that made it very difficult to get into. While I can’t dispute their creativity and musical ability, this is a strangely distant album that has resisted all my efforts to enjoy it in a meaningful way. It’s also a very challenging album to describe so stick with Steel Druhm and he will do his bestest. 
German power metal/freak show act Powerwolf have been perplexing me since their 2005 debut. All corpse painted up and evil looking, they look like a black metal band but actually play sub-par power metal with traditional metal elements and coat the whole thing with cheesy theatrics and goofball pomp. I attempted to get into what they were doing on several occasions due to the buzz they were receiving but aside from a few scattered tracks, it was rough going. To me they always seemed generic and silly, though I appreciated their zest and zeal for entertaining. With this back-history, I naturally chose to approach their fourth album, Blood of the Saints with muted expectations. As usual, Steel Druhm is proven wise indeed. Blood of the Saints is arguably Powerwolf‘s best release thus far and packs several amusing and respectable songs, albeit, still laden with cheese and cheap theatrics. However, as a whole, its still the same Powerwolf product and that can’t lead too far down the road to the land of 5.0. For every decent song, there’s an equally painful one and a few are just laughable. While I know they don’t take themselves too seriously, sometimes silly is too silly and that’s the case here more often than not. 
Manilla Road, thy name is cult! These aged metallers from Kansas have been keeping it ”true” since before the 80′s. Over their long existence they released no less than fourteen albums of old school, vintage metal to the acclaim of a small but loyal niche following. Led by guitarist/singer Mark “The Shark” Shelton, they’ve plumbed the depths of 70′s and early 80′s metal, some albums sounding like old Cirith Ungol, some moving closer to Manowar, Doomsword and Slough Feg. They’ve always lived in that realm between classic metal and doom and their discography has its great moments (and a few missteps as well). In some circles these guys have attained legendary status and while they clearly deserve it for dedication, I never thought their material was all that consistent. However, I always find myself rooting for them to succeed. I did so again with their fifteenth album Playground of the Damned, but I’m not too thrilled with the end product. Like some prior albums, there are great moments but some cringy ones as well. Definitely an acquired taste and not for everyone, this is one of those bands you really have to hear for yourself. However, I will endeavor to do my humble best to describe what lies within as only the Lord High Protector Steel Druhm can. 
The kings of knuckle dragging neanderthal death metal are back. Yep, nobody ever accused Jungle Rot of being unpredictable or avant-garde. Quite the opposite, since 95′ these Wisconsin blokes have been churning out their primitive, simplistic, groove-based death metal with scant innovation or diversity. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing considering their style was always a like-ably thick headed brand of American death with all the brutality but none of the frills. Albums like War Zone and Dead and Buried were enjoyable, fun efforts showcasing their simple sounds at their best. Now we get Kill on Command and its more of the same but with a polished production and a drift into deathcore territory, intentional or not I don’t know. Before you start smashing keyboards and such, this isn’t a full blown deathcore album but it has those trademark elements of the style embedded in the writing. How much of it? Well enough to annoy me but not enough to sink the album entirely. Its still that same ugly mix of Six Feet Under and old Cannibal Corpse and its fairly well written and at times, oddly catchy. However, some other issues crop up and together they drag this album down from good to less so. 
Well, here’s a release I can easily see falling through the Angry Metal Cracks. One is the first (and maybe last) release by a supergroup of sorts led by Michael Andersson, vocalist for Swedish melodic metallers Cloudscape and featuring members of such renowned acts as Dream Evil, Hammerfall and Yngwie Malmsteen. Now, we all know supergroups can be very iffy propositions and Fullforce is no different. It seems whenever a group of talented musicians get jammed into a room to write and record, disaster is as likely to result as triumph. So where does this one fall? Pretty much exactly in the middle of the two extremes. There’s some top notch, super melodic metal here and some rather generic, boring duds. What makes this album of particular annoyance to Steel Druhm is how good the good stuff is. With some real winners on display, its a total buzz kill to have roughly half the album fizzle out and fail to keep the momentum going Fullforce (yeah, you knew it was gonna happen at some point). OK, it’s time for your slightly bitter host to examine One in a non-bitter fashion. 
I respect when a band creates something unique, challenging and hard for the listener to initially absorb. However, I only respect it when there’s a real payoff once the listener DOES absorb it. I think most readers can recall some album in their past that proved difficult to grasp but all of a sudden, you got it and the album opened up and became great. That’s the root of the problem with Mammal, the new Altar of Plagues platter. An avant garde post-black metal band coming out of Ireland of all places, Altar of Plagues released a very impressive debut with White Tomb back in 2009. Follow up EP Tides was good but nowhere near as impactful. Now their second full length fails to live up to the enormous potential heard on their debut. Is that potential in danger of going up in post-smoke? Read on metal warriors, read on. 
I never heard of these guys before and didn’t know what to expect but they’re described as folk/viking black metal from Germany. Finis Terrae is their third platter and features guest appearances from members of Heidevolk and Equilibrium. Since I wasn’t able to locate their earlier works, I can’t speak intelligently about how this stacks up to their past material but I can say this isn’t what I expected from a viking/folk group. Instead, a lot of Finis Terrae reminds me of a mid-paced, way more melodic version of Children of Bodom with some hints of Kalmah appearing throughout as well. Only during the back half of the album does KromleK employ what could be considered a traditional viking/black metal style and by then it seems out of place after all the COB-lite noodling. Thus, this becomes a tale of two half albums that don’t necessarily compliment each other. While I was pleasantly surprised by the strange, progressive approach on some of the material here, things get pretty uneven and spotty as things move along. What we get left with is a confusing mish-mash of styles and intentions. 
This is an odd one indeed. Basically, Sarke is a side project for Thomas Berglie (Old Man’s Child, Khold) and he handles all the instruments here. He recruited Nocturno Culto (Darkthrone) to do the vocals and together they released Vorunah in 2009 and now they’re back with Oldarhian. Although both men come from black metal backgrounds, Sarke is not a black metal band. Instead they play a mix of traditional heavy metal, Cemetary, Tiamat and new Darkthrone with some extra punk tossed in for good measure. The music is very stripped down, simplistic and not exceptionally heavy. At least for Nocturno, this material isn’t a big departure since it’s similar to Darkthrone albums like Circle the Wagons and F.O.A.D. Keeping their sound fairly consistent with the Vorunah album, Oldarhian offers more of their basic metal-punk fusion and while it has some enjoyable, rocking songs, it doesn’t completely work for me as a whole. 
